Modern Rock No. 1s: Green Day and "J.A.R."
Green Day finds its way to the top for the last time in the '90s with "J.A.R.," a song that grapples with unexpected death and tenaciously encourages everyone to live their lives to the fullest
Green Day - “J.A.R.”
Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock chart: 1 week (August 26, 1995)
Previous Modern Rock #1 hit: Alanis Morissette and “You Oughta Know”
Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:
Seal - “Kiss From A Rose” (8/26/95)
I’ve written about Green Day a lot. I can’t help it. They literally changed my life, and a lot of that life-changing came from a setlist that included three Modern Rock Tracks chart #1 hits from 1994 and 1995: “Longview,” “Basket Case,” and “When I Come Around.” I tend to rate them pretty high in my internal rankings and reviews because the songs still hold up after 30+ years and are among my all-time favorites from the era.
But even I have my limits. And I’ll be perfectly honest: Even though it’s a fine song, I really don’t have a lot to say about Green Day’s fourth modern rock #1 hit, “J.A.R.” It’s … fine.
OK, “J.A.R.” is probably better than fine. It’s a solid track, a cast-off from the sessions that led to the creation of the band’s seminal album Dookie that found new life as part of the motion picture soundtrack to the movie “Angus.” I’ve never seen “Angus,” but I guess it has a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and might be worth a nostalgic rewatch if that’s your jam. I know the soundtrack has some solid tracks from bands like Weezer (“You Gave Your Love to Me Softly”) and Dance Hall Crashers (“Enough”), but for a radio audience hungry for more things that sound like Dookie, “J.A.R.” absolutely hits the mark.
The song’s message is an uplifting one, a change of gears from Green Day’s hits that talk about cracked streets, broken homes, going blind and smelling like shit. The titular “J.A.R.” is an acronym for a person’s name, specifically Jason Andrew Relva, a friend of Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt whose car crash death was self-inflicted. Dirnt penned the song in remembrance of his friend, and offers a surprisingly adult take about the aftermath of one’s death, and choosing to live life to the fullest.
My friend drove off the other day, now he’s gone and all they say
Is “you got to live cause life goes on...”
But now I see I’m mortal, too, I can’t live my life like you
Got to live it up while life goes on
And I think it’s all right
That I do what I like
’Cause that’s the way I want to live
It’s how I give, and I’m still givin’...
Dirnt’s lyrics have an emotional complexity that really stand out here. Relva was just 19 years old when he died, far too young for anyone in his age range to really grasp the concept of death. Who’s concerned about dying when you have your whole life ahead of you? That’s what Dirnt grapples with here, talking about living his life to the fullest while also recognizing that there’s a finality to it.
I appreciate that message more and more each day, and regret that “J.A.R.” didn’t make the setlist in the 2021 concert I referenced above, as it might hold more emotional resonance for me. I often lament missed opportunities to hang out with friends and family, knowing that the number of chances we have to be together is finite. I know that, as I age, “the way I want to live” will have a narrower window of possibility: I can’t ride roller coasters forever, for example, or find myself comfortably thrashing around a mosh pit. (I may actually be too old for both of those already, but fuck it, I’m still going to do it!)
There’s nothing musically different in this song that hasn’t already been done to great effect across all the tracks in Dookie, and it’s likely that similarity that makes it difficult for the song to stand out in my mind. Honestly, when I try to imagine “J.A.R.” in my head, I get it confused with other Green Day hits, like “Redundant,” “Walking Contradiction” or even “Geek Stink Breath.” Obviously those are all different tracks with distinctive sounds and notes, but my brain usually has to cycle through all of them before I land on the riff that starts “J.A.R.”
And even that riff feels familiar in a different way…
Yup, Blink 182 guitarist Mark Hoppus is on record explaining that the guitar riff to one of the band’s earliest hits, the 1999 single “What’s My Age, Again?” was an attempt to play Green Day’s “J.A.R.” riff. He spoke about it in an interview for Kerrang! in October 2020:
“I was just writing a funny song. There’s a Green Day song called ‘J.A.R.’ on the ‘Angus’ soundtrack, and it starts off with this bass intro that’s really rad. And I was messing around on the guitar trying to learn that, and I kinda messed up the progression, and I played it incorrectly, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s kinda cool…’ and that was the basis for the opening riff of the song: me trying to learn how to play ‘J.A.R.’ on guitar and messing it up, and coming up with something that I liked that was different than that.”
“What’s My Age, Again?” peaked at #2 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, but Blink 182 will absolutely come up again at the turn of the century in this chronological review.
The years have been kind to “J.A.R.,” and it remains an unsung darling among music critics and rock purists. Several “best-of” lists put “J.A.R.” in at least the top 10-15 songs in Green Day’s catalog, and there are a lot of things about it that justify that position. I think Dirnt’s lyrics are terrific and heartfelt, and I really like when Green Day as a unit harmonizes vocally. They do it really well during the refrain of this song, and it does give me the slightest of chills when I listen to it.
From a personal perspective, I can’t rank it in the top 20 of my favorite songs from the band. While I appreciate where critics come from, I’m not alone in my feelings representing a more populist perspective; indeed, on Spotify, “J.A.R.” ranks second to last on the 21-track International Superhits! album, just ahead of lead single “Maria” but behind everything else, including “Poprocks & Coke,” a song I swear I never knew existed till now.
That said, Green Day’s catalog is so deep that even a song like “J.A.R.” is still solidly good when compared against other tracks of the era. It did reach #1 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart for a single week and stayed on the charts for four months, but historically I think it was more the result of fans eager for more Green Day in general, rather than a sincere hunger for this song. The public’s eagerness to dive head first into Green Day’s catalog would subside as the decade continued, as this is the last time the band topped the Modern Rock charts in the ‘90s. We’ll see them again in the 2000s with another historic surge, but this marks the end of Green Day’s dominance in the post-grunge era.
“J.A.R.” is fine — a solid effort, one that likely deserves a resurgence — but not fine enough to give it an overwhelmingly high rating.
Rating: 6/10
Chart Check
Other notable MRT chart songs from this time period
Slow week in the Chart Check section, with the featured track being a one-week chart topper. This week, we feature another top-10 peak for Gin Blossoms, the one and only track from Canadian alt-rock outfit Rusty, and the second-to-last chart appearance for Matthew Sweet.
“Til I Hear It From You” by Gin Blossoms (#5):
I imagine a lot of you remember the movie “Empire Records.” For some reason, that one passed me by and I never watched it, but whenever anyone references the movie I immediate think of “Til I Hear It From You,” the Gin Blossoms track that led the promotional cycle for the motion picture soundtrack. Gin Blossoms were already a household name by the summer of 1995, having dominated the pop charts and hitting #1 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, so this one immediately went into rotation on rock and pop radio. It peaked at #5 behind Green Day and into the top 10 on all the Billboard pop airplay and radio charts (never being released as a commercial single, it was ineligible to chart on the flagship Hot 100).
“Wake Me” by Rusty (#26):
Canadian alt-rockers Rusty crossed the border and found some airplay on the U.S. alternative rock charts with “Wake Me,” the highest-charting U.S. single for the band. I have no recollection of this song. It’s fine. Maybe you have some Rusty memories, maybe not. If you do, it’ll probably be from this era, as the song peaked at #26 behind Green Day, and subsequent singles and albums failed to chart in the States.
“We’re The Same” by Matthew Sweet (#34):
Following up the hugely successful single “Sick Of Myself,” Matthew Sweet’s “We’re The Same” is a nice, saccharine-sweet alt-rock confection that peaked at #34 behind Green Day. Sweet will appear on the MRT chart one more time before the ‘90s are out, but this marks the end of his biggest commercial run in the U.S.
Great read as always! I'd never heard of Rusty before. Might have to brush up on my 90s CanCon knowledge! 😆
Nice set of tunes!