The Green Day anti-conservative screed "American Idiot," was laughably labeled as "socially conscious" by the Associated Press in its coverage of the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, at which the left-leaning punk group scored awards in seven of eight categories for which it was nominated.
(AP) For the first time in a while, the MTV Video Music Awards rocked more than it hip-hopped.
More than 11 years after their hit album "Dookie" reinvigorated punk rock, Green Day won seven video awards out of eight nominations Sunday for the socially conscious "American Idiot" and the melancholy "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," which frontman Billie Joe Armstrong called a "hangover" song.
For those unfamiliar with the song, I've copied and pasted the lyrics below. And no, so far as I can tell, they were not, contrary to appearances, penned by some ninth grade Noam Chomsky wannabe:
Don't wanna be an American idiot.
Don't want a nation that under the new media.
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mindfuck America.
Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Everything isn't meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We're not the ones who're meant to follow.
Convincing them to walk you.
Well maybe I'm the faggot America.
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along in the age of paranoia.
Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Everything isn't meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We're not the ones who're meant to follow.
Convincing them to walk you.
Don't wanna be an American idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information nation of hysteria.
It's going out to idiot America.
Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Everything isn't meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We're not the ones who're meant to follow.
Convincing them to walk you.
