Listen to Green Day’s previously unheard ‘Nimrod’ demo ‘Black Eyeliner’

Green Day have released ‘Nimrod XX’ – a deluxe reissue of their fifth album, ‘Nimrod’, celebrating its 20th anniversary – featuring a previously unheard demo titled ‘Black Eyeliner’.

The last of 14 bonus tracks on the record, ‘Black Eyeliner’ is significant because it went on to be repurposed into two different songs: ‘Church On Sunday’ from Green Day’s ‘Nimrod’ follow-up ‘Warning’ (which itself arrived in 2000), and ‘Kill Your Friends’ from 2018’s ‘Love Is For Losers’, the debut album by Billie Joe Armstrong’s side-project The Longshot.

‘Black Eyeliner’ and ‘Church On Sunday’ both feature the same pre-chorus, with Armstrong singing: “Bloodshot, deadbeat / Lack of sleep / Making your mascara bleed / Tears down your face / Leaving traces of mistakes.”

‘Kill Your Friends’, on the other hand, doesn’t pull any lyrics directly from ‘Black Eyeliner’, but does borrow its chord progression and basic lyrical structure.

Have a listen to ‘Black Eyeliner’ below, then compare it to ‘Church On Sunday’ and The Longshot’s ‘Kill Your Friends’:

Elsewhere on ‘Nimrod XX’, fans can hear the other previously unreleased demos ‘You Irritate Me’ and ‘Tre Polka’, as well as rarities like ‘Desensitized’ and covers of songs by the Ramones (‘Chain Saw’) and Elvis Costello  (‘Alison’). Another bonus disc also features 20 songs recorded live during the ‘Nimrod’ era.

‘Nimrod’ – the follow-up to 1995’s ‘Insomniac’, for which Green Day also released a quarter-centennial edition – first hit shelves on October 14, 1997. It spawned four singles: ‘Hitchin’ A Ride’, ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’, ‘Redundant’ and ‘Nice Guys Finish Last’.

Meanwhile, Green Day recently confirmed they’ve begun working on their 14th studio album, which will follow up on 2020’s ‘Father Of All Motherfuckers’. The news followed on from a brief teaser video posted last January – when they previewed a new song on social media – and the reveal that they’d recorded material at RAK Studios in London.

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