Track 6 from Warning
Released 2000
Green Day has played this song live 3 times.
This song tells the story of four characters who cross paths, mostly because of drugs. All these characters meet their ends because of their treacherous lifestyles. One is a drug dealer, one is a whore, and one is a bankrupt businessman. They all run into trouble and don't handle it the right way. They kill and run, all in the name of money and drugs. The narrator stresses the trouble that one can get into when they take the wrong path. Once you're in trouble, you can easily spiral into more and more bad fortune, just like the characters in this song. All of the choices they made left them miserable in the end.
Virginia was a "lot lizard" from F.L.A.
She had a compound fracture in the "trunk"
It started when she ran away
Thumbs out out on the interstate
She hitched a ride to misery
"Mr. Whirly" had a catastrophic incident
He fell into the city by the bay
He liquidated his estate
Now he sleeps upon the Haight
Panhandling misery
He's gonna get high
When he's low
The fire burns from better days
And she screamed why
I said I don't know
The catastrophic hymns from yesterday
Of misery
Vinnie was a hustler out of Amsterdam
He ran the drug cartel in "tinseltown"
They found him in a cadillac
Bludgeoned with a baseball bat in the name
Of misery
Gina hit the road to New York City
Mysteriously the night Vinnie croaked
She stopped in Vegas to elope
With Virgina and the dope
And kissed the bride eternally
And they're gonna get high
When they're low
The fire burns from better days
And she screamed why
I said I don't know
The catastrophic hymns from yesterday
Of misery
Hell hounds on your trail now once again..boy
It's groping on your leg until it sleeps
The emptiness will fill your soul with sorrow
Because it's not what you make....it's what you leave
And we're gonna get high
When I'm low
The fire burns from better days
And she screamed why
I said I don't know
The catastrophic hymns from yesterday
Of misery
"Misery" has been played 3 times live: