For Green Day chords, tabs, and lyrics, click HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to your all-new Monday edition of the Laptop Sessions.  It’s been a while since I’ve featured a recently released song, so I’m going to put an end to that right now.

Tonight, I present to you “Peacemaker,” a track from Green Day’s 2009 album 21st Century Breakdown.  This is perhaps my quickest turnaround time from the release of a song to the recorded Laptop Session, as this album just hit the record store racks on Saturday.  I don’t know why Green Day opted for a “special Saturday release,” but it was kind of cool to have something brand new (and on sale!) on the shelves when I was browsing Newbury Comics this weekend.

What is my take on the album, you might ask?  Well, it DID knock Bob Dylan’s Together Through Life out of the number one spot in the UK, but I suppose I can overlook that…

Seriously, I don’t really know why I keep buying Green Day records.  One of my favorite lines from the movie Fracture is when a doctor asks the Ryan Gosling character, “Do you always keep asking the same question until you get a different answer?”  He responds, “I’m a lawyer.  That’s what I do.”  In this case, I’ve never been a fan of the band.  I liked early hits like “When I Come Around,” but I couldn’t get into their acclaimed album Dookie.  I’ve never really given it a fair shake, so it has ended up back in my “To Be Listened To” pile (currently housed in my Best Buy-exclusive Together Through Life crate — thank you, Mike!).

I finally picked up their 2004 album American Idiot after recommendations from several friends and critical acclaim from multiple music magazines, but I have yet to get into that album, as well.  I have consistently found it somehow too blunt.  Even the songs that I like — yes, mostly the overplayed radio hits — strike me as too formulated, too stamped out for the enjoyment of the average mainstream listener.  Who knows; perhaps someday I’ll be able to break the code of this concept album.

That is indeed why I picked up this latest installment in the Green Day catalog: it’s a concept album based loosely around the story of two characters named Christian and Gloria.  As with American Idiot, I much prefer to pay attention to the thematic threads.  Now, whereas in the 2004 album I have never been able to appreciate the lyrics, I have found several tracks on this new album that I like for several reasons — the lyrics, the overall instrumental sound, and Billie Joe Armstrong’s vocals.  Not to sound even more critical or anything, but Armstrong’s vocals on American Idiot have a tendency to get on my nerves.  That being said, he plays with his range and style in several different ways on this album.  Some songs are stripped down to basic piano or acoustic, and some songs are layered from top to bottom with spot-on vocal harmonies and distortion guitar blasts.  From start to finish, the album generally knows when to slow it down and when to kick it up a notch.

I have only heard the album three times in full, so I should reserve any final opinions for the future.  What I do know is that I like this concept album much more than American Idiot, from the sound all the way down to the album art.  Like their previous album, the cover artwork and liner notes are beautiful, carefully designed pages that feature the handwritten lyrics and various background designs.  If nothing else, this is a band that tries really hard to create an album that works as a whole.  And, after five years since their last album — more time between releases than ever before — they’ve certainly had enough time to perfect this one!

Without further ado, I’ll let you move on to my cover song music video of “Peacemaker.”  This is sure to be one of Jim’s favorite sessions of the year, so it may be difficult to outdo myself next week.  And yet, I suppose I’ll just have to try…

See you next session!

For the cover song music video, click HERE!

“Peacemaker”
Green Day

Bm
Well, I’ve got a fever,
A non-believer.
I’m in a state of grace,
For I am the caesar.
Bm                           F#
I’m gonna seize the day.
Well, call of the banshee…  Hey, hey.
(Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey)
As God as my witness,
F#                                Bm
The infidels are gonna pay.

Well, call the assassin
The orgasm,
A spasm of love and hate
For what will divide us?
The righteous and the meek…
Well, call of the wild… Hey, hey.
(Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey)
Death to the girl
At the end of the serenade.

F#
Vendetta, sweet vendetta,
F#     Bm
This beretta of the night,
Bm  Em                  Bm
This fire and the desire.
F#                                               Bm
Shots ringing out on a holy parasite.

I’m a killjoy from Detroit
I drink from a well of rage.
I feed off the weakness
With all my love.
Call up the captain… Hey, hey.
(Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey)
Death to the lover that you were
Dreaming of.

This is a standoff,
A molotov cocktail is on the house.
You thought I was a write off;
You better think again.
Call the peacemaker… Hey, hey.
(Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey)
I’m gonna send you back to the place
Where it all began.

Vendetta, sweet vendetta,
This beretta of the night,
This fire and the desire.
Shots ringing out on a holy parasite.

Instrumental:  Bm – F# – Bm – F#  Bm   Em   Bm   F#   Bm

Well, now the caretaker’s
The undertaker.
Now, I’m gonna go out
And get the peacemaker.
This is the neo
St. Valentine’s Massacre.
Well, call up the Gaza… Hey, hey.
(Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey)

Death to the ones
At the end of the serenade. (x4)

** These chords and lyrics are interpretations and transcriptions, respectively, and are the sole property of the copyright holder(s). They are posted on this website free of charge for no profit for the purpose of study and commentary, as allowed for under the “fair use” provision of U.S. copyright law, and should only be used for such personal and/or academic work. **

By Jeff:

It’s that time – Thumpin’ Thursday!  And it’s the 2nd to last Thursday that I have before the prom that I have been helping to plan.  Everything is starting to fall into place for it, and I will be the happiest person alive next Friday once I can wake up and say “well that was fun and worth it”.

Until then, I have a great song that is perfect for this week.  Obviously not in reference to anybody in particular, but just the fact it has the word “crazy” in it makes it appropriate.

The song this week is from a new band to the Sessions called “She Drives Me Crazy”.  I’m sure everyone will instantly recognize this tune.  It was a #1 hit (among another song off of the same album) in the 80′s, and the original version of this song has one of the coolest music videos i’ve ever seen.  The album by the way is called “The Raw & The Cooked”.

This song is an ok translation to acoustic guitar.  Part of the allure of the song is the percussion and “beat” that is provided throughout the song.  Don’t get me wrong – i’m glad that we can now say there is an acoustic cover of the song, but i’m not sure that the original version was meant for an acoustic guitar.

That being said, my Roland Gift impression is not that good .  I always said to myself he looks like someone I know, but I can’t place who it was or who I thought it was.

This song is also quite easy to play.  If you can play a D – G – Bm – A progression, and switch up the strum patterns for verse & chorus, then you can play this one.

Ok i’m going to head to bed so I can take care of some more prom planning, then I have a Dr.’s appt., then I get to umpire a Varsity game tomorrow that I got moved to today!  That’ll make 3 Varsity games this week.

I hope you enjoy your weekend, and make sure you keep returning to laptopsessions.com!

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to another week and another all-new Monday edition of the Laptop Sessions.  It’s been quite a weekend, and it’s going to be quite a week!

On Friday night, I stayed late at school for as long as I could, but I just couldn’t resist going to see the newly released Star Trek movie.  For once, a movie lived up to the hype!  I picked up Nicole for the trip to the theater, and although we’ve seen a lot of good movies together (not to mention a decent number of flops), this has to top them all.  Although I’m more of a Trek geek than she is, I think it’s fair to say we were equally excited during and after the movie.  If you love the classic series and films, then you’ll appreciate the respect paid to these characters.  If you know nothing about the franchise, then this is the perfect film to watch first.  I can’t wait to find an excuse to watch it again very soon…

Saturday was a crazy day for me, as my sister Jaime graduated from Nyack college at 2 pm in New York.  I got up early (for a Saturday, at least!) and drove to New York for my least favorite of all activities: ceremonies like a graduation.  That being said, it was worth it to see my sister graduate.  We met as a family later on for dinner and that was great, too.  It was great to have Nicole join us, too, and she made what could have been a long, boring drive with lots of downtime an enjoyable little day trip.  Sunday was more of the same, as it was Mother’s Day, and my sister is only home for a week before returning to New York to work.  We got to hang out, talk music, and watch an episode of The Twilight Zone that gave her nightmares as a young child.  We didn’t get to play The Office board game, but there will always be time for another round in the future.  (And I’ll be ready this time! )

Tonight finds me watching the Mets.  After a seven game winning streak, it appears that they’re going to lose one.  I’m loving this iPhone “MLB.com – At Bat 2009″ application.  It makes listening to games and staying in touch with the stats and standings soooo easy.  It’s been a great week for watching Mets baseball, and I don’t want to complain.  But I don’t quite get why they seem unable to score runs when Johan Santana is pitching.  Maybe they get subconsciously complacent, since he’s such a great pitcher.  Even tonight, although he got into a couple sticky situations, he worked his way out of each one — until they pulled him out 1/3 into the seventh inning.  What truly amazes me is his ERA; as of tonight, it is .78!  Games with Santana on the mound would have to get busted open wider than Abyss during a Pay-Per-View for weeks straight for him to reach the ERA’s of the other Mets starters…

But, enough of blogging for blogging’s sake — I should probably introduce the song I’ve recorded for tonight’s acoustic cover song music video.  “Off He Goes” is a track from Pearl Jam’s 1996 album No Code.  This album was the first to break from their previous sound a bit and some fans disapproved.  I’ll admit that it’s not my favorite album in the Pearl Jam catalog by any stretch, but there are some great tracks on it.  “Hail, Hail” is one of the most rocking and catchy songs in their catalog.  “Present Tense” is one of my favorite Pearl Jam tracks, if only for the combination of lyrics and gradual instrumental buildup.  “I’m Open” is a cool spoken-word track — yes, those do exist!

This track, “Off He Goes,” is perfect material for an acoustic cover song.  Initially, after having this song come up on my iPod this weekend, I thought it would be an easy song to record.  Ironically, I almost decided not to learn it and record it for fear of being criticized for recording too many simple songs.

Well, that’s simply not the case…

As Jim can attest to, I spent over an hour and fifteen minutes and about 40-50 takes of this song to get it anywhere near where I wanted it to be.  There are still a couple of discrepancies I hit while singing the tune, but I also nailed a few of my favorite subtleties in the song.  What recording this song taught me was how truly difficult it is to make a slow, deceptively simple song like this really translate into a great performance.  I have even more respect for Eddie Vedder than I did before, especially for the fact that he plays guitar and sings in concert on this one.  The chords are so easy — really, just F, C, and Am — but the strumming pattern was difficult to hit in a few places.  (**The best part about recording these sessions, undoubtedly, is spending all that time, posting on YouTube, and waking up to find that two people have viewed it, one of whom has one-starred it and left no comment.  Thanks for that.**)

That’s enough for one Monday.  I hope you enjoy the session (more than my first YouTube viewer did) and hurry back all week for great new acoustic cover song music videos.

See you next session!