It’s that time of the year again — when everyone makes jokes about Billie Joe Armstrong … and he’s totally in on it, despite how difficult of a time this is in reality.
The Green Day frontman tried to get ahead of all the memes and posts that inevitably were posted anyway — taking to the GD Instagram account to throw up a photo of himself floating on a giant rubber ducky with a drink in hand.
Billie Joe Armstrong this morning. pic.twitter.com/rMUUPcOwq0
— Rob O’Hanrahan (@RobOHanrahan) October 1, 2022
@RobOHanrahan
His caption is pretty simple … “GOOD MORNING. YOU’RE WELCOME.” BJA noted that he’s in Singapore right now, and it seems he’s on a bit of vacay — which is also telling.
What we’re talking about, of course, is his band’s famous song “Wake Me Up When September Ends” … and all the cracks that are online right now, making fun of the fact that Billie must be rising from his month-long slumber on October 1st.
IT’S OCTOBER 1ST SOMEBODY WAKE UP BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG
— Doug Benson’s doing stand-up San Diego today @4:20 (@DougBenson) October 1, 2022
@DougBenson
It’s all in good fun — at least on the surface anyway. The problem, though, is that there’s a bit of a dark origin story to that classic ditty … and it has to do with Billie’s father and him passing away when he was a young boy, back in September of ’82 to be exact.
This is well-chronicled … as BJA has gone on record many times over the years to explain this, noting that the song is about him dealing with a hard time in his life and having to process the death anniversary of his father — which he did through this song.
Seems like most people are simply unaware of this hard truth — which is fine, but going forward — folks should probably chill on the Billie jokes every October 1st … ’cause like we said, it’s actually a sore subject for the guy. Although he’s clowning around here, it’s gotta be tough.
Frankly, the lyrics give away what this tune’s all about. People just gotta listen/pay attention.