“I’m having trouble trying to sleep.” These are the first words painfully muttered in the song, “Brain Stew” from Green Day’s 1995 album, Insomniac. The song was one of three singles the band released prior to the the album, the other two being “Geek Stink Breath” and “Stuck With Me.” The song became a massive hit after the album’s release, charting at 35 on the Billboard US Radio Chart and 8 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Chart in 1996. Like every other hit Green Day song, it is a catchy punk rock song with memorable lyrics and lots of energy, but one thing that separates it from Green Day’s other smash hits is one thing: it doesn’t have a chorus.
The song fits perfectly into the overall schema of the album, being written by frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong, about his personal struggles with insomnia at the time. The band had just finished their rigorous touring schedule for their previous smash-hit album, Dookie, and all the members, Armstrong in particular, were completely burnt out from the tour and all the evolving responsibilities in their personal lives. Armstrong had just had his first-born child, Joey Armstrong, prior to the writing of the album in Feb. 1995. The newfound responsibility of fatherhood weighing on him on top of the mental and physical burn out of touring, Armstrong felt he was burning his candle at both ends. These newfound emotions and themes of exhaustion, frustration, anxiety and panic are seen in all the tracks on Insomniac, but especially in “Brain Stew,” sonically and lyrically.
In each of the four verses, Armstrong describes his mental state through a series of declarations. Each verse describes small realities and occurrences in Armstrong’s life at the time, being about things such as drug use, anxiety, and insomnia. Lines like, “My mind is set on overdrive,” and “Past the point of delirium,” paint a detailed picture of Armstrong’s mind: exhausted, delirious and on the brink of complete and total breakdown. At the end of each verse Armstrong seems to bring himself back to reality, accepting his responsibilities and accepting his damaged mental state, saying “On my own, here we go.”
Throughout the song’s 3 minute and 13 second runtime, only five chords are played on the guitar in the same order, over and over. These chords, all being in the A flat Mixilydian scale descend down the scale, each filled with an overwhelming wall of distortion. This arrangement of chords and their crunchy distorted tone will be the skeleton and blueprint for the entire song. This paints a sonic picture into Armstrongs mind, floating through his exhausting life down a staircase into insanity, with fleeting hopes of keeping on. This bleeds into the “chorus” of the song. I say chorus in quotations because of its stripped back unorthodox pulsing energy with absolutely no lyrics.
Green Day is widely known for their anthemic powerful choruses, filled with catchy melodies and lyrics. “Brain Stew” manages to stray from this musical normality, having no lyrics and simply amplifying the same riff with more volume, distortion and presence. While the chorus does still use the same five chords, they are played louder and heavier, being interlocked with scratchy distorted harmonics from Armstrong’s strumming in between each chord change. Whereas the drums in the verse rely on a simple drum beat with a tight closed hi-hat, letting the guitar and lyrics shine, the drums in the chorus are more open and fuller. Played with the hi-hat open, the drums in the chorus continue this amplify this feeling of stress and anxiety, starting to scream in the face of the listener. The first chorus is fairly short, only being eight measures long. It is a small mental lapse for Armstrong being told through the energetic sonic rhythms and tones of the wordless segment.
There are three short verses before the first chorus of the song, allowing it to give lyrical context and establish the repetitive sonic schema of the song, all while building up into the first chorus and emotional break within the story being told. The fourth and final verse of the song repeats the lyrics from the second verse of the song, bringing everything back to a familiar yet different place for Armstrong. The lyrics of this verse are as follows:
“My eyes feel like they’re gonna bleed
Dried up and bulging out my skull
My mouth is dry
My face is numb
Fucked up and spun out in my room
On my own, here we go”
Things are different for Armstrong here, he is no longer reciting these words and feelings with a sense of realization, he is screaming them back at himself with a boiling tone of anger and frustration. All his feelings and responsibilities are starting to really get to him, reaching a climax for himself in the listener. As the line, “Fucked up and spun out in my room,” is said, a second, more distorted guitar comes in, sliding down the whole neck with a roaring sound of distortion, sending the song and Armstrong off a cliff into a violent break of insanity. For the fourth and final time, the words, “On my own, here we go,” are said, and like a freight train, the song transitions into its final chorus.
The wheels have completely fallen off for Armstrong. The same iconic riff is now being played at full volume, full energy and full force. The riff drones on yet breaks through the mix, conveying Armstrong’s slip into a dissociative mental breakdown. The drums explode through the whole chorus, utilizing the same beat interlocked with the presence of piercingly loud cymbal hits. The same riff and chords continue to repeat over and over, louder and more unhinged than before. The one difference about the final chorus is the addition of a screeching E flat note that rings in the background every two beats. The presence of this higher octave note repeating at the same times while the rest of the song descends into madness encapsulates the sheer feeling of Armstrong fully losing it. While it may not be vocally, this chorus screams at the listener over and over, until it finally gives way, ending on the same note that started the song, an A flat. The final chord rings out and slowly fades away, ending the mental, emotional and musical descent into over-exhaustion and madness that is the song.
“Brain Stew” is a journey, a statement and a frustrated expression of someone wishing for a sense of normalcy and tranquility in their life. It’s honest verses and unorthodox choruses all stemming around the same iconic five chords cemented it as an immediate hit and a staple within Green Day’s massive discography. Its simplicity and repetition bode the question: How had no one else come up with something like it before? While the answer to that question remains unknown, one thing still reigns true. “Brain Stew” by Green Day is a catchy, energetic and anxious musical journey that will live on for decades to come.
