The one thing I love about music is that everyone has their own story to tell – the musician, the lyrics, the way the fans decipher them and also the way a song can also create a memory or a meaning to someone. That is what this new article is all about. Each fortnight, we will take a look at a different song and I will take you as a trip down memory lane as to what it means to me. Welcome to Music Memories.

Track: Coming Clean
Artist: Green Day
Original Release Date: 1994

It is amazing that even when you listen to a song years later the memories come flooding back of a very specific thing. Well today we are going to look at a Green Day track that whenever I hear it I always go straight back to this time.

For as long as I can remember, I have always had headphones in my ears and music playing. I cannot remember how old I was when I started but I know it was a very young age. Being born at the end of the eighties, means that you grew up in a world where you experienced a lot of tech changes and constantly altered the way that you listened to music.

I had a cassette player for years and if I ever wanted a mixtape I would have to ask my grandparents to do it as they had this huge stereo which allowed them to transfer music from CDs to tape.

There was a time where I had tapes and CDs however it was a while before I got a personal CD player so I had to get most of my music transferred to tape. Also I used to spend a lot of time listening to the radio and recording songs off the air, so you would always get the DJ speaking into and out of the song.

When I started listening to rock music, I had to ask friends from school to do copies of albums from their CDS to tape for me as there was a lot of bands I did not know or at the time could not afford to buy.

One of the cassettes that my friend gave me was a copy of Dookie – I thin it is one of the first rock album that I owned and I used to listen to it a lot. I think a lot of my albums came like this but I vividly remember this one. I loved it ( and still do) and I don’t think that many of the new albums even came close to how good this one is – maybe American Idiot but nothing else.

I used to love the words, the music and the vibes and they were the first band that I learnt how to play on the guitar. However there was one song that still brings back a very vivid memory, even now.

Coming Clean wasn’t my favourite track however it was the place that the cassette would run out and you had to turn the tape over. I am so used to it that even now I wait for the song to end at a specific moment. It is so weird but that is what happens when you grew up in a world with developing technology.

Facts About Coming Clean

• Billie Joe Armstrong has stated that this song is about coming out of the closet. Billie Joe himself stated, “I think I’ve always been bisexual” in a 1995 issue of The Advocate. He also brings up his thoughts on the issues of heterosexuality and homosexuality in the music world