Track of the Day: Green Day’s “Welcome to Paradise”

By KEITH CAMERON

This track is dedicated to all those freshmen out there who have not yet learned to love their surroundings. “It’s been three whole weeks since that I have left my home” – and since you left yours. For those of us who have been here for some time, Northern “…makes [us] wonder why [we’re] still here,” especially when we see headlines about bar fights and shootings where people are “…left dead on [their] own.” However, when you’re chasing a degree, this strange place will start “…feeling like [your] home, and [you’re] never gonna go.”

As you walk to class and behind the bars or fraternity houses this weekend, “…pay attention to the cracked streets and the broken homes.” Depending on their year, “…some call it slums some call it nice.” Wait until you call up a friend from high school and say, “I wanna take you to a wasteland I’d like to call my home.” Welcome to college; “Welcome to paradise.”