Basket Case

Bear with my melodrama for a moment, but I think Billie Joe Armstrong tends to get overlooked as a lyricist. Green Day started firmly in the punk scene, but there’s a good reason they were (and still are) one of my favourite bands from when I was younger.

Even with its humour, Basket Case is one of the best songs I know that captures the experience of extreme anxiety and intrusive thoughts — something I know all too well. As a teenager, those were crippling feelings I didn’t yet know how to externalise.


It’s only as an adult, looking back, that I can see why their music resonated so deeply with me.