Video sparks controversy and conversation
green day released a controversial lyric video for their song "Troubled Times," from their album "Revolution Radio." After the video was released, it went viral, appearing on Facebook and YouTube trending lists. The politically-charged video features images of Trump alongside the KKK, intermixed with footage of protesters, holdings signs with phrases such as "Stop Racism," "Islamophobia," and "War." As it is a lyric video, the powerful words of the song appear alongside the already stirring images.
The song starts out with the lines, "What good is love and peace on earth, if it's exclusive? Where's the truth in the written word, if no one reads it?" While these words appear on-screen, they flash across images of protesters from the women's suffrage movement and the civil rights movement. Later in the video, more protest footage is shown, but from modern-day protests, showing a parallel between today and history's events. It's clear in the video that Trump is the villain -- the cause of the ongoing "Troubled Times," as the video states.
A continuing history of fighting the system
This video comes as no surprise, based on the band's history of politically-charged songs and expressions.
Their 2004 album "American Idiot" put them in the spotlight for being an attack on the Bush Administration. More recently, in their performance of "American Idiot" at the 2016 MTV Europe Music Awards, they changed the words to "Subliminal mind-Trump America," instead of "mind-f*** America." Just weeks later, during their performance of "Bang Bang" at the 2016 American Music Awards, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong added in the phrase "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA." However, despite some of the jarring visuals and lyrics to the video, such as "Don't think twice, we live in troubled times," playing over an animation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. crying, the band released an accompanying statement with the video, saying, "Today we celebrate love and compassion more than ever."