a b Raggett, Ned. " Kerplunk! Review". AllMusic. Rovi. Archived from the original on March 14, 2011 . Retrieved June 19, 2011. Revisiting the band’s attitude towards their craft as young upstarts, he added: “But when it came to music, they were Very Serious Indeed. I was working with a lot of young bands in those days, and one thing I constantly struggled with was getting musicians to strike the right balance between having fun and making the most of their musical abilities. That was never an issue with Green Day. Other musicians would say things like, ‘We’re just a dumb punk band anyway, nobody’s gonna care what we do, so we might as well have fun.’ Green Day had plenty of fun, as anyone who knew them in those days can testify, but they also wrote and played music with the quiet, exuberant confidence of artists who didn’t need anyone else’s opinion to validate them.”

Hours, 1990’s Slappy EP, and 1991’s 39/Smooth LP were bundled together on CD as (duh) 1991’s 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours. It’s raw stuff, but even at this point Green Day’s records were at least halfway decently recorded, unlike most of their peers’ tin-can-and-twine set-ups. And songs like “At the Library” were downright hummable, always important when you’re trying to make pop music—especially out of only a few chords in a formally restrictive setting. Of course, on a label that at the time included household names Plaid Retina and Sewer Trout, early Green Day were bound to shine, but if they had broken up after 1,039, they’d be remembered—if at all—as perhaps the slightly less emo cousin to early Jawbreaker, or maybe the musically less accomplished Crimpshrine.

Notes

The song is filled with the spirit of the album expressing the difficulties of realizations of one's mistakes and self-deception. The narrator takes the blame for his actions and admits everything he's done wrong - but he can't change anything, and once again he's left without an answer to the one question that keeps dwelling in his mind: "Why?" This is a song about missing someone you love, thinking about them all the time and dreaming of being next to them again. Spitz, Marc (2006). Nobody Likes You: Inside the Turbulent Life, Times, and Music of Green Day. ISBN 9781401302740. The interlude comes in with the author admitting he actually likes feeling love despite the pain he gets since its been so long already ( I do not mind if this goes on, Cause now it seems I'm too far gone). The song ends by stating how the two end up as a couple ( 80 please keep taking me away). Stegall, Tim (2021-01-18). "THESE 15 ALBUMS FROM 1991 LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR PUNK AS WE KNOW IT". Alternative Press . Retrieved 2021-12-08.

Some call it slums, some call it nice" - it's only slums when you look at it from a distance. But when you live and breathe it - it becomes nice because it is your home. Not your parents' home, but one of your own - and it's Paradise. Originally released on December 17, 1991, Green Day’s second studio album, Kerplunk, was the first to feature drummer Tré Cool. Completing the band’s lineup and rhythm section along with Mike Dirnt, AllMusic praised the pair, saying that Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th conciseed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8. All these realizations lead the narrator to another serious question, and that is whether there is a God, whether there is someone or something that actually knows the answers to eternal questions. Like so many others he was praying at night because he'd been told that this was the right thing to do. Now he's reached the time when he starts questioning whether he believes in that himself - so far he has no answers. And he's wondering if he's just been lying to himself all along. Spitz, Marc (2006). Nobody Likes You: Inside the Turbulent Life, Times, and Music of Green Day. New York: Hyperion. p. 76. ISBN 1-4013-0274-2.First came the name change: Green Day. Then came their nearly weekly shows at 924 Gillman Street, the straight edge all ages refuge that birthed influential acts like The Lookouts and Operation Ivy. Green Day even managed to swipe The Lookouts drummer, an excitable and unpredictable ball of energy who went by the name Tre Cool. By the time they stumbled into the Art of Ears studio in San Francisco to record their second full length on Lookout! Records, they had a (slightly) increased budget, a solid year of touring behind them, and a whole slate of new songs written by lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong.