In a House With Unlocked Doors… Part twenty-four
B Side Shenanigans
By Sharon Mitchell
As I have mentioned before, a lot of singles and most Japanese cd releases have bonus tracks featured on them, and Green Day’s second compilation cd, from July, 2002, gathered together a lot of these ‘rarities’. Shenanigans contains several covers of other bands’ songs, too, including The Kinks’ Tired of Waiting and The Ramones’ Outsider.
The cd artwork features a dark spray – painted splodge – which obliterates the track DUI, which the band decided was not a good idea to include in this compilation due to the inappropriate message it gave. it was pretty ironic when, just six months later, Billie was arrested for the very same offence after being caught speeding in his BMW in Berkeley.The track was written and sung by Tré on the demo version that survives, and alongside the Mike Dirnt – penned track, Ha, Ha, You’re Dead, this is easily the album into which Billie had least lyrical input of all of their releases. Despite that, it is still a very good album!
I have also a demo version, the cassette and the Japanese issue. Rumour has it that some albums were released in that country that still included DUI, but I have never been able to locate one. It does, however, include the lyrics in English and in translation, something that was omitted from the regular US and European release. The basic record release was in bright blue, and as with all of the other pre- 2009 albums, rereleased on heavy grade black vinyl to celebrate the band’s twentieth anniversary. I also own a t-shirt, one of only 200 made, which was issued as advertising for the album. It’s one of my favourites, featuring the spray-can images of all three band members on a grey background.
Over ten years later, I think that the band could easily issue both Superhits and Shenanigans volume two. There were five singles from American Idiot, another five from 21st Century Breakdown and three (so far) from The Trilogy, in addition to the charity singles Working Class Hero (recorded for Amnesty International on the Instant Karma album for the people of Darfur), and The Saints Are Coming (for Music Rising, a charity set up to replace the instruments of musicians who lost everything in New Orleans’ devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005). It could also include When It’s Time, an old previously-unrecorded track that was resurrected for inclusion in the American Idiot musical, and I would KILL to hear a studio version of Cigarettes and Valentines!
For the new Shenanigans, there is a wealth of choice. There are all of the bonus tracks from 2004/5, including Too Much Too Soon, Favourite Son, Shoplifter and Governator, plus Lights Out and Hearts Collide from the 21st Century Breakdown era, and the four fabulous covers of Social Distortion, Elvis Presley, Who and Bob Dylan songs recorded as iTunes exclusive tracks. Add to this the covers of I Fought The Law, Husker Du’s Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely, The Simpsons Theme from the movie, and the songs written (and usually performed) with other artists, such as Radio with Rancid, The Angel and The Jerk with Penelope Houston, The Unforgiven for the GoGos and the two tracks Supermarket and Private Hell which featured on Iggy Pop’s album Skull Ring, it could even be a double album!
