Song review: Still Breathing

Here is another song review, sort of similar to the one I did awhile back about Barbarism Begins at Home. Which, as you may remember, was not a positive review.

Today's, or rather, tonight's song review is of a new song by the band Green Day. I don't have any particular strong opinions towards Green Day; I only know a few of their more famous songs, American Idiot and Boulevard of Broken Dreams (another song that I particularly like, even more so than any Green Day song I know, that has "boulevard" in the title is Stars and Boulevards by Augustana) being some of them. 

This song is from a new album they recently released called Revolution Radio (I think?). The song is called Still Breathing. I listened to it because I saw a link to an article about it. It was a decent song, not particularly irritating or anything, but rather safe and bland and not particularly profound or anything. There is an excessive use of similes in this song. Speaking of which, there is a sort of similar thing going on in the song Ash and Ember, another one by Augustana, with comparisons/descriptions of events that are relevant to the themes in the song, but Dan manages to do it in a way that does not involve excessive use of similes although there is some use of metaphors and one simile in the chorus of the song - "like a phoenix rising up from ash and ember." All in all it is a very good song like many other songs that he has written over the years. But I digress. 
Back on topic now. 
This is no American Idiot, or Citizen Erased (a song by Muse that is like 7 minutes long and quite something) or Demolition Lovers (a My Chemical Romance song that just happened to come on shuffle right as I'm writing this, after I listened to Stars and Boulevards which I felt like listening to because I mentioned it earlier on in the post) or Bullet with Butterfly Wings (a song by another band, the Smashing Pumpkins, which I don't even like, but that song is... it's... it has a certain edge to it). I don't exactly have a ton more to say about this song. It wasn't particularly impressive or anything. It might grow on me a little bit, but that's not going to change the fact that it's a bland, and dare I say, cliche kind of song. It almost feels insincere in a way. For some reason. I never thought of Green Day as the epitome of songwriting (Dan from Augustana is the epitome of songwriting, for me), but I expected a little better than this. It's a rather generic pop-type song. 

I may possibly listen to other songs from that album, but probably not the whole album. Maybe there's another single from it, I don't know. If any new opinions about this song pop into my head, I might add them here but I can't guarantee that new opinions about this song will come to me.   

As an afterthought, I decided to attempt a bit of an analysis of this song. I have taken some of the similes and other important phrases in the song and looked at what I associate with them. Some of the things are paraphrased from how they are in the song. These are just some very roughly thought out ideas, straight from brain to screen (rather than paper) so they may not be the most coherent but I haven't bothered to clean them up into a clearer form. 

child looking at horizon - hope, naivete, wonder, innocence
ambulance with sirens - sense of urgency 
son without father - lost, identity crisis (sort of), loneliness?
struggling mother - desperation 
addict getting clean - hope but also the possibility of failure, a difficult task 
gambler losing the last of their money - also desperation 
soldier coming home for first time / dodged bullet and walked across landmine - brush with death, relief, emotional attachments to people (family/etc)

find home for restless - not finding a place to belong 
 bleeding from the storm? - chaos, have I survived it unscathed?
above the rain and roses - ?? rain -> sadness; roses: thorns? Things that are beautiful but also have a more unpleasant side? 
shine a light into the wreckage -  
are you scared to death to live? 

The count: (like in that one post I did about eyeballs and eyelashes)
times I made positive/glowing remarks about Dan/Augustana (even though this post is supposed to be about a Green Day song): 3