Green Day: Wake me Up When September Ends Meaning

Song Released: 2005

Wake me Up When September Ends Lyrics

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends

Like my fathers come to pass
seven years has gone so fast
wake me up when september ends

Here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched...

1. KING426HEMI

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   Apr 29th 2009 !⃝

   To me wake me up when September ends, in the part where it says 20 yrs have gone so fast,well that to me means 2 decades have gone by real quick.i personally like the song very much !! I know how it can be easily interpreted into
   a 9/11 song,but I know it's really not.although the lyrics sound similar.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
2. anonymous

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   Mar 11th 2009 !⃝

   The member of Green Day, Billy Joe Armstrong, had a father that passed away when he was 10. He actually died from cancer in the month of September. The phrase,"Wake Me Up When September Ends", means he's feeling sad his dad passed, so he doesn't even want to live through the month.
3. tatbrat

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   Jun 23rd 2008 !⃝

   It's about the young men and women going into the Iraq war and any innocence they had left is gone after seeing death up close. They are in a far away land, they see their friends die, they know what it's like to kill a human being and know that they will never be the same. That is if they come home.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
4. anonymous

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   May 30th 2008 !⃝

   Once and for all time, I will explain this. Most people have it right, this song IS ABOUT BILLIE JOE'S FATHER. Any of you numbskulls who say otherwise should just shut up.
   
   --Saint J--
5. anonymous

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   May 10th 2008 !⃝

   You know what, people, stop arguing and putting each other down. Only one thing is true in the interpretations of songs, THEY HAVE MORE THAN ONE MEANING TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE!!!!! They can be analyzed in any way you put it. This song could b about 9/11, Billie Joe's dad, war, or anything else in general. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion! No one is wrong about the meaning of the song, it is open ended.
6. anonymous

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   Apr 2nd 2008 !⃝

   This song fits in with the rest of the American Idiot album's story line. Although it does have a rather personal side to it, Billie Joe's dad dying when he was ten...RIP Mr Armstrong...nothing to do with war, it's part of the story of some kid who calls himself the Jesus Of Suburbia.
7. nibbygrace

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   Feb 4th 2008 !⃝

   This is about the everyone in the army and how they leave the people they love and how stressful and brutal it is being in the army.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
8. anonymous

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   Nov 29th 2007 !⃝

   This song is about going to war, there's no particular line to make me feel this way, but the whole song.
   "Drenched in my pain again, becoming who we are" is about the fact that a lot of people who go to war are forever changed, haunted by the horrors of war.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
9. anonymous

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   Nov 7th 2007 !⃝

   It's about a time in life when we realize we are mortal. About how his father grew older and so did he. Before he knew it he was seven, then twenty and he begins to understand that part of life is that it can't last forever. It's about memories of the past and how you never really lose you past. Very pretty song.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
10. anonymous

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    Nov 2nd 2007 !⃝

    I find it interesting how many people are convinced a song and a video have to have the same meaning. Does that mean Weezer's "Buddy Holly" is about Happy Days, and "Keep Fishin'" is about the muppet show?
    
    Some video's (as I suspect is the case with "September" ) just use the song as a background dialogue to an original story separate from the song....sheesh.
11. anonymous

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    Nov 1st 2007 !⃝

    Why the fuck do you idiots all keep writing the same thing? Before posting a comment about how it was written about his dad look at the bajillion other comments that already said this, stfu.
12. anonymous

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    Jul 31st 2007 !⃝

    Ok some of you people do not understand it is not about war or a couple or anything like that it is about his dad's death in September you see his dad died when Billie was only 10 years old and Billie ran to his room and locked himself in there screaming wake me up when September ends which is how the song came. At least that's what my friend told me. She swore on Billie's face so I'm sure she was not lying, and when you go on you tube and you click on the live one he starts crying yea its really sad so yea.
13. anonymous

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    Jul 1st 2007 !⃝

    Okay I don't know if this is right because I agree with the theory of the song is about Billie Joe's father dying. but I heard from my friend it was about a guy who has to leave his family and girlfriend for the war. I'm not sure if this is true, but it explains the music video with the war in it.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
14. blackthorn7861

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    Jun 26th 2007 !⃝

    Billie Joe Armstrong (not Billy or Billy Joel!)did write this song from inspiration of his father passing. Andrew Marciano Armstrong died in september 1982 of cancer. Billie Joe was 10 years old. But the music video portrays how a teenage couple are seperated because the boy has to go to war. It is associated with september 11, and green day is anti-war, how war ties in with september 11, it was the cause of the war. I read the biography book, Nobody Likes You: Mark Spitz. In the book billie joe explains that the video was made that way to get teenagers to talk about the war and their views on it, because teenagers don't really talk about that alot, and other music doesn't focus on it. It has to do with standing up for what you believe in no matter what everyone else thinks, and that you shouldn't follow the crowd to fit in. Be a minority. It's the message green day has always promoted through their music. It's what they believe in. If your beliefs differ, you can always not listen to green day then.
15. SquareEagle

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    Jun 19th 2007 !⃝

    I agree with some of the previous posters, in that the song is somewhat open ended. I know Billie Joe's father was the inspiration, but I have a much more personal meaning. For me, this song represents my experiences during Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005, stranding my family and I in Texas for the month of September. "Here comes the rain again, falling from the stars" The rain just kept coming and showed no indication of stopping. "Drenched in my pain again, becoming who we are" I could only watch helplessly as my home city was ravaged by the storm, and these experiences helped to shape who I am now. "As my memory rests, but never forgets what I lost" I am now able to keep the memories from causing me grief, but I'll never forget the things I lost because of the storm and my moving away afterward. "Wake me up when September ends" obviously reminds me of how miserable that month was. Spending four weeks in several different hotel rooms and just wanting it all to be over. Now here's where it gets tricky. "20 years has gone so fast" There is a statistic out there that says how often certain level storms will make landfall on the gulf coast near New Orleans. The timeframe for a storm as destructive as Katrina is approximately 20 to 25 years if I remember correctly. And it had been about 25 years since the last major hurricane came that close to the city. As I said before, this is all my personal interpretation of it. I don't claim that it's the RIGHT interpretation, but it's mine.

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