"Hey there lookin' at me/ Tell me what do you see/ But you quickly turn your head away/ Try to find the words I could use/ Don't have the courage to come up to you/ My chance is looking a bit grey."
Setting the mood for the remainder of 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours (originally released in 1991), Billie Joe's simplistic lyrics from "At the Library" are about as overt as a teenager can get. What follows is story after story about sexual frustration, adolescent yearning, non-conformity, alienation, teenage nostalgia, and wide-eyed optimism spread out over 19 tracks of pop goodness. Sound original? Certainly not. Sound genuine? You bet your sweet ass. I mean, hell, what else would a teen be writing songs about? Nuclear proliferation? Foucault's Panopticon? I don't think so. Leaving the similes, metaphors, and world-weary topics for the pseudo-poets of Jewel's ilk, Billie Joe instead wrote lyrics that told it to us straight.
Adding 20 minutes of live video performance from 1990-91, rare photos and art, a live radio performance/interview from '91, and a redesigned digipack, Lookout! gave 1,039 the extreme makeover. In stark contrast to Green Day's more recent major label releases, 1,039 still sounds like a demo, even with its remastering. But the demo quality is not necessarily a negative thing. It makes sense that the band's major label albums are polished, but this sloppy, mistake-filled effort fits perfectly in the Gilman Street-politics of their former youth context. And it seriously has some of the best pop-punk songs ever written. From "1,000 Hours" and "Going to Pasalacqua" to "Dry Ice" and the cheeky rendition of Operation Ivy's "Knowledge," this pre-Tre Cool Green Day found their sound early in the game.
It's easy for critics to shit on Green Day due to such superficial reasons as MTV stardom and their change in songwriting; but this album made waves long before Dookie was released, and let's face it, their change in songwriting was inevitable. It's bad enough when musicians croon about the inequities of the capitalistic work force at 17; it's even worse when 30 year-olds still pen songs about adolescent daydreams and lost love. Green Day has grown out of their pop-punk background and has matured faster than most of the bands in their class. Although you won't find anything tremendously thought-provoking or revolutionary (after all, this is pop-punk we're talking about), this is about as perfect as it gets. Besides, the CD jacket teaches you how to dance like a West Delta Poseur Tweet. You wouldn't want to show up at your next show dancing like one, would you
1. At the Library
2. Don't Leave Me
3. I Was There
4. Disappearing Boy
5. Green Day
6. Going to Pasalacqua
7. 16
8. Road to Acceptance
9. Rest
10. The Judge's Daughter
11. Paper Lanterns
12. Why Do You Want Him?
13. 409 in Your Coffee Maker
14. Knowledge
15. 1,000 Hours
16. Dry Ice
17. Only of You
18. The One I Want
19. I Want to Be Alone
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