See Green Day’s ‘They Live’-Inspired ‘Back in the USA’ Video
Green Day pay homage to John Carpenter‘s sci-fi classic They Live in the band’s new video for “Back in the USA,” one of two new tracks on their just-released greatest hits collection God’s Favorite Band.
The video opens with Billie Joe Armstrong living a sterilized, black-and-white Fifties sitcom existence until a woman shows up at his house with a pair of sunglasses that allows him to both see colors and, like Carpenter’s 1988 film, subliminal messaging.
When Armstrong puts on his sunglasses, for example, he sees messages like “Consume,” “Procreate Now” and, on television, “President to Lie to Nation Tomorrow Night.” After recruiting the rest of Green Day, the band sets out to alert the nation by putting the sunglasses over the lens of the camera that’s about to be film the president’s speech, exposing the president – who bears a strong resemblance to Donald Trump – as an alien. Green Day then take over the stage to perform the new song.
In a nod to the film Pleasantville, once the alien plot is exposed and Green Day is heard, colors spread throughout the black-and-white world, modernizing the society and breaking it out of its social moors.
God’s Favorite Band, Green Day’s first best-of compilation since 2001’s International Superhits, boasts 20 of the band’s biggest hits alongside two new songs: “Back in the USA” and a new version of Billie Joe Armstrong’s solo cut-turned-Revolution Radio closer “Ordinary World” featuring guest Miranda Lambert.
Green Day’s Dookie recently finished atop Rolling Stone‘s 50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums list.