Listen to Billie Joe Armstrong covering John Lennon’s 1971 protest anthem Gimme Some Truth.
In the absence of one of his awesome No Fun Mondays instalments this week, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has instead offered up a "No Fun Monday Hump Day" edition of his quarantine covers, tackling John Lennon's protest anthem Gimme Some Truth.
The iconic 1971 track – which was written during the Vietnam war and originally released on John's Imagine album – has been covered many, many times over the years, with the likes of Generation X, Ash, Pearl Jam, Primal Scream and Cheap Trick all tackling it and giving the song their own spin.
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And, as Billie Joe explains, his adaptation “lands somewhere in between Generation X, Billy Idol and John Lennon” – though the first time he heard it was actually through from of his “all time faves”, Generation X.
Of course, the Green Day frontman is no stranger to tackling political issues such as those in Gimme Some Truth. The likes of 2004's American Idiot and Holiday, and 2009's 21st Century Breakdown and American Eulogy, are all particularly potent, though Billie seemingly held back on being so direct about the current U.S. president on the Oakland trio's latest album, Father Of All…
“I mean, I draw no inspiration from the President of the United States, because he’s just… there’s nothing,” he joked to Kerrang! last year. “Trump gives me diarrhoea (laughs), you know? I don’t want to write a song about it!
“It’s just more about trying to empathise with people’s situations. It’s just a crazy time. When I was a kid, my parents had six kids. My dad was a trucker and my mother was a waitress, and they bought a home in California in the ’70s with five kids living in the house. That is an impossible thing to do right now in California – if not in other places. And that’s what scares me a little bit more – what’s going to happen to people in the future. Millennials trying to buy a home, or to have something that they can call home, because everybody’s being kicked out of their homes…”
Listen to Billie Joe covering Gimme Some Truth below:
Read the full lyrics to Gimme Some Truth below – and sing along loud:
I'm sick and tired of hearing things from
Uptight short sided narrow minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic psychotic pigheaded politicians
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
No short-haired, yellow-bellied
Son of tricky dicky's
Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hopes
Money for dope, money for rope
No short-haired, yellow-bellied,
Son of tricky dicky's
Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hopes
Money for dope, money for rope
I'm sick to death of seeing things from
Tight-lipped condescending mama's little chauvinists
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I've had enough of watching scenes from
Schizophrenic egocentric paranoiac primadonnas
All I want is the truth just give me some truth
No short-haired, yellow-bellied,
Son of tricky dicky's
Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hopes
It's money for dope, money for rope
I'm sick to death of hearing things from
Uptight short sided narrow minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic psychotic pigheaded politicians
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
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