Green Day’s Dookie is now 30 years old, and therefore reminds me that I am old AF.

This album is one of my first encounters of Green Day back in the early 2000’s, and it’s been one of the pieces of music that helped shape my musical tastes and interests. And also made me fall in love with the bass guitar. Mike Dirnt on the bass guitar was amazing, with Billie Joe’s amazing songwriting and Tre Cool’s unpredictability, this album is goated to say the least. This album took Green Day to heights never before seen by a punk band.

Longview was the first Green Day song I learned on the bass, and I underestimated it A LOT. The note changes, the offbeats, the way you gotta play it in a certain way and no shortcuts, and since it’s on the bass guitar, it’s easy to hear whenever I don’t play it the way it should be played, especially with the next song below. 

Welcome To Paradise is by far the best song of the album bar none. Well this is totally not a biased take because I’m a bass player myself but, the way it builds from the beginning until the radical bass solo from one of the bass greats. Mike Dirnt has that dawg in him and where did he think of making all these bass riffs that are as memorable as any song. BUT THAT BASS SOLO THOUGH. My jaws just dropped when I listened to it for the first time, and when I tried learning it, and got it for the first time, it was an amazing feeling.

She is a simple song that has all the signature Green Day shticks. Great writing, great instrumentals, and with this performance here, very HIGH quality if you know what I mean.

I can’t believe Dookie is 30 now. All the kids who were born in 1994, it’s your turn to become 30 and have the joys, mostly pains of being up here with the rest of us. I grew up with this album, and it remains one of the albums of my childhood all the way to now. The album even in it’s nth time relistening has no skips, because if I skip something from albums like these, I feel like I’m fastforwarding way too much from a time in my life that I miss dearly.  I love you Green Day.