Everyone knows an American Idiot; they’re someone who copies everyone else, cannot think for him or herself, and fits perfectly into society’s brainwashed mold. Green Day, a punk rock band that has been around since the 90’s and breaks almost every societal norm, sung about many Transcendentalist beliefs also held by Henry David Thoreau, such as nonconformity and self-reliance. American Idiot, sung and written by Green Day, emphasizes both the importance and lack of nonconformity and self-reliance in American society, a problem also faced by Thoreau in Lawrence and Lee’s work. Both Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer and songwriter for Green Day, and Thoreau had desires to stray from society because of it’s conformist ways; the chorus of
