21st Century Breakdown

Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong told Q magazine May 2009: "That goes from a song about where I come from to what it's like to be in this era, financially. It represents an underdog spirit."

The lyric, "My generation is zero, I never made it as a working class hero" references the John Lennon song "Working Class Hero," which Green Day covered for the Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur compilation album in 2007. Armstrong explained to AOL that he referenced Lennon's lyric as he "mostly just liked the line." He explained: "It's the times that we live in right now. It's really hard for people to sort of manage the situation they're in, let alone get out of it as far as either be working class, middle class or poor. I think a lot of people end up having this faith-based sense of non-reality that they're gonna win the lottery or something like that. And that couldn't be further from the truth, especially right now. There's a different crisis every week; natural disasters, corporate bailouts, people losing their homes, unemployment. It's desperate times right now for a lot of people. That's sort of what that line represents to me."

Armstrong told The Sun April 24, 2009 that the album title represents the post-Bush world and the end of an era. He explained: "It's about the collateral damage with it but also the hope and optimism a lot of Americans have. It's a really strange time. Exciting, because there's the first African-American president, a smart man who wants to do a good job. A man who's inheriting the biggest pile of s--t this country has ever seen since the Depression. People are losing their jobs yet have a smile on their face, so this record is about that and the start of another era."