During their headlining performance at Coachella on Saturday (April 12th), Green Day changed the lyrics to their 2004 single “Jesus of Suburbia” to make a statement about the Palestinian children affected by the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
“Runnin’ away from pain, like the kids from Palestine / Tales from another broken home,” frontman Billie Joe Armstrong sang, changing the original line of: “Runnin’ away from pain when you’ve been victimized.”
This isn’t the first time Armstrong has shown support for Palestine. In February during Green Day’s show in Malaysia, Armstrong was handed a Palestinian flag by a member of the audience, which he then draped over his shoulders as he continued to play “Jesus of Suburbia.” This angered Jewish supporters of Israel on social media.
Armstrong also recently used the same track to make a statement about Vice President J.D. Vance last month, singing “Am I ret&rded, or am I just J.D. Vance?” instead of the original lyric “am I just overjoyed?”
Green Day have a long history of using their music as a form of protest. For the last several years, they have repeatedly changed the lyrics of their hit song “American Idiot” to call out Donald Trump. Kicking off their Coachella performance with “American Idiot,” Armstrong once again replaced the original line “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda” with “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda.”
