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"Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" is a 1997 song by the American punk rock band, Green Day. Although written by lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong just after the release of Dookie, it didn't appear until their album Nimrod. "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" is a very mellow, contemplative acoustic song. In fact, it was the only song from Nimrod that was a crossover success when released in single form.

It was more commonly promoted on radio as just "Time Of Your Life," with the Good Riddance portion omitted. It was a chart topper on the Billboard charts and became an international hit later on. The song reached a massive audience in one night, when it was used during the special two hour finale of the show Seinfeld. The song played in the first half during a montage of clips from the show's history. Afterwards, the final episode aired. A more lesser known role the song had was during the retirement ceremony held for hockey player Wendel Clark before the season opener between the two hockey clubs: Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens, at the Air Canada Centre. The crowd proceeded to give Clark a 5 minute standing ovation as he walked out to the ice.

The music video of the song is very austere. It features Billie Joe Armstrong playing the guitar while depicting several people undergoing major changes in their lives.

Ironically, this song is frequently played at weddings, anniversaries and graduation ceremonies, despite being a break-up song, conveying the opposite message than is presumably intended at such events. Billie Joe Armstrong actually wrote this song about the way that the bands original fans turned on them when they got picked up by a major record company. It was pretty much a "screw-off" type of song. This is likely due to the near-universal omission of "Good Riddance" from the title. As of 2005, the original title of "Good Riddance" has been mentioned on radio and TV on a few occasions, though less frequently than the erroneous "Time Of Your Life (Good Riddance)".

Trivia

• If you play this song backwards, the words "Lolleypop man" and "Mustard" sound out loudly

• When Billie wrote Good Riddance, his girlfriend moved to Ecuador. He tried to be levelheaded about it and wrote this song when they were producing Dookie, but to show his anger, he named the song "Good Riddance" and made "Time Of Your Life" the subtitle. The song shows us about life, how we are not to question it and keep moving on.

• 1997 singles
• Green Day singles