Green Day: Wake me Up When September Ends Meaning

Song Released: 2005

Wake me Up When September Ends Lyrics

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends

Like my fathers come to pass
seven years has gone so fast
wake me up when september ends

Here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched...

1. Esparanza

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   Jun 19th 2007 !⃝

   This song is about Billie Joe's dad's death when he was ten. "summer has come and passed" means there's a time when he thought he wasn't going to be ok but he is now (also referring to the time in which his father died)."wake me up whemn september ends" means give him until the end of september to be ok. "ring out the bells again like we did when spring began" he's over it and ready to move on. "like my father's come to pass 20 years has gone so fast" means he forgot about it and moved on but he remembers it now and realizes 20 years passed and he hardly ever thought about it, that he really was and is ok now. "here comes the rain again falling from the stars drenched in my pain again becoming who we are" means the rain is his tears coming again falling from probably a memory he thought of that made him cry and he's feeling that pain all over again remebering those same feelings as a kid and still as an adult.
2. anonymous

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   Jun 12th 2007 !⃝

   I agree with many of the previous posters. This song is quite open-ended. And while the inspiration was Billie Joe's father, I relate to this song on a personal level because of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005. The residents of New Orleans, myself included, all simply wished for it to be over. "Here comes the rain again" and the subsequent lines only reinforces this for me because New Orleans gets multiple storms almost every year, and every time the citizens must simply keep going. "Like my fathers come to pass, seven years has gone so fast" and "twenty years has gone so fast" shows how many of the residents have lived there their entire lives, and their parents and grandparents before them, all having to deal with these storms. As I said, this song strikes a personal chord with me.
3. Music_is_love

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   May 27th 2007 !⃝

   It's clear to see that this song has something to do with war. It's true in fact about Billie's father who died of cancer because of his involvement in the war. Billie's father was exposed to a cancer causing chemical which caused his death when Billie was young. However, he uses the message of the present war in Iraq to show that his father paid the ultimate price of the countries dicision to go to war. So overall, the song is about his fathers death and Billie opposing the war in Iraq.
4. anonymous

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   Apr 26th 2007 !⃝

   First of all, this song isn't about 9/11 it's about Billie Joe's dad who died of lung cancer when Billie was 10. This song was wrote as a tribute to his father and expresses feelings of loss and acceptance.
5. Anonymous101

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   Mar 29th 2007 !⃝

   This song IS about Billie Joe losing his father to cancer when he was a young boy. The video for this song shows a young couple dealing with the fact that one is going off to war. Green Day thought that the song related to people losing a loved one because of the war that is going on right now, they felt it appropriate to use that as the theme for their video. I saw a special about the making of this video and some of the soldiers in the video are actual men who served in the Iraq war. Essentially the song is about losing a loved one, and in Billie joe's case it was his father, hence the reference to his father!
6. anonymous

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   Mar 18th 2007 !⃝

   People arguing about what it means should watch the proformance of it on youtube. He explains that it's about his father dying...he wrote it cause it was therapeutic for him.
   
   It's not about 9/11. But I see how most of you think it is..

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
7. anonymous

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   Mar 5th 2007 !⃝

   ONLY THE FILM CLIP IS ABOUT WAR OR LOVE OR WHATEVER
   
   
   The song is actually about his dad dying.
   
   
   geeeeez.
8. anonymous

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   Feb 9th 2007 !⃝

   i know one thing
   THIS SONG IS NOT ABOUT 9/11
   just because the song has "september" in it they think it is about 9/11
   just like Lucy in the sky with LSD
   
   ANYWAYS..............................
   
   this song is about the passing of Billie-Joe's father who died of Cancer. The reason why it is called Wake me Up When September ends because he died on a September.
9. Angelmisty

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   Feb 6th 2007 !⃝

   This song is about Billie-Joe's dad who died of cancer when Billie was 10
10. anonymous

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    Jan 20th 2007 !⃝

    Good song! Plus, I'm glad it was made after 9/11 or Clear Channel would have banned it from radio stations (After 9/11, Clear Channel found some songs that would be a bad idea to play due to 9/11). I know it's not about 9/11 because Billie is talking about his father's death, not the thousands who died during the terrorist attacks.
11. anonymous

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    Jan 11th 2007 !⃝

    In this melancholy ballad, Billie Joe, backed by the support of the other members of Green Day, takes a trip back to his painful childhood and thinks about the day he lost his innocence when his father died. Like many faced with such a traumatic event, Billie Joe never truly recovered, and he can't believe that twenty years have passed since the day. As Armstrong associates pain with the month September, the month his father died, he would rather not deal with anything related to the month prompting him to sing, "As my memory rests, but never forgets what I lost... Wake me up when September ends..."
    
    Billie Joe has been known to cry during live performances of this song, and one such performance can be seen on their 2005 live DVD/album Bullet In A Bible. Although, it should be noted, it is not certain whether he is actually crying or if the lighting is only reflecting off sweat on his face.
12. anonymous

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    Nov 18th 2006 !⃝

    I want to clear up this misunderstanding here. Wake me up when September ends is about Billie Joe Armstrongs father dying. Andrew Marciano Armstrong (Billie's dad) died in September 1982 of cancer. Billie Joe was only 10 years old when his father passed. I think the reason why Billie,in the second stanza of the song, mentions "Like my fathers come to pass, SEVEN years has gone so fast...." is refering to Billie Joe's son, Joseph Marciano Armstrong, who at the time this song was written (2002) was SEVEN years old. If you notice, Joseph has the same middle name (Marciano) as Andrew. Billie is thinking of his son when he thinks of his father in the song.Then, in one of the last stanza's of the song Billie sings "like my fathers come to pass, TWENTY years has gone so fast....", because September 2002 would have been 20 years from September 1982. This song like many from American Idiot has a lot of feelings at stake, and to put it down, you are hurting more people than you think because a lot of people connect with this song on an emotional level. People who put down this song, or any Green Day song, are insecure assholes who don't know talent when they hear it!
13. anonymous

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    Oct 18th 2006 !⃝

    Snipedcky, um you my friend are wrong. In an interview with Billie and blender magazine,billie was asked about the song. He said,and I quote," september's a wierd time. It's when my father died,it's when september's over,there's september 11,johnny ramone died in septeber." forgive me for making you lose your cool points dear,but you're wrong.
    
    Macayla
14. anonymous

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    Sep 11th 2006 !⃝

    Well you guys pretty much got the fact that it is about his father but you might not have known that the reason he said "wake me up when september ends" is because on the day of his fathers funeral he just couldn't handle it and ran home right in the middle of the funeral and locked himself in his room, later when his mom came home and checked up on him he just screamed out "wake me up when september ends" or at least that is just what I heard
15. anonymous

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    Jul 27th 2006 !⃝

    Okay I see how some of you know what you're talking about, and how some of you don't have a fucking clue.
    The song is not about 9/11, war, or really the rest of the cd.
    Wake me up when september ends is about Billie joe's father that passed away from cancer in september when he was only 10 years old.
    When Billie Joe was at his father's funeral, he couldn't handle it. He ran home crying, basically not wanting to take the fact of his father's death. His mother came home after the funeral finding him locked in his room. When she asked his to come out of his room, Billie replied to her "wake me up when september ends," thus later being the song name.
    The lyrics; "seven years has come so fast." greenday formed seven years after his death.
    The lyrics; "twenty years has come so fast." it's been twenty years when he wrote the song since his death.
    The song was originally supposed to be released in dookie with probably a bit of a different song and lyrics, but Billie wasn't emotionaly for it until american idiot.

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