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29th Apr 2018

Campaign launched to get Green Day’s American Idiot No. 1 for Trump’s UK visit

And can you hear the sound of hysteria?

Oli Dugmore

And can you hear the sound of hysteria?

Donald Trump will visit the UK in July and a Green Day fan has started a campaign to get pop punk banger American Idiot to No. 1 in the charts in time for his arrival.

Earlier this week it was announced that Trump would finally be visiting the UK on 13 July.

A Green Day fan posted on Facebook encouraging British people to download the hit song and send a message to the American president.

We have a date, he’s coming Friday 13th July… so if we ALL buy enough downloads of Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ between Friday 6th-Thursday 12th it will time PERFECTLY to hit No.1 the very day he arrives on UK soil! Streaming counts too but less effective. Let’s do this!

Released in 2004, the single marked the band’s departure from weed and masturbation anthems to the overtly political. Released at the height of ill-feeling toward the Bush administration following the Iraq invasion, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said the song was about America’s broader political picture than Bush individually.

“I would never think of ‘American Idiot’ as being about the Bush administration specifically. It’s about the confusion of where we’re at right now,” he said in SPIN interview.

Armstrong had posted his support for the anti-Trump campaign on Instagram but has since deleted the post.

The lyrics of American Idiot describe media paranoia and fear-mongering in a timeless way, written under the yoke of the last Republican presidency they’re still relevant.

Don’t wanna be an American idiot

Don’t want a nation under the new mania

And can you hear the sound of hysteria?

The subliminal mind-fuck America.

In 2009, The X Factor’s run at the Christmas No. 1 spot was ended after a campaign launched supporting Killing in The Name by Rage Against the Machine.

Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead reached number 2 in 2013 after Margaret Thatcher died.