Billie Joe Armstrong in an interview, May 2005:
At the time I wrote Good Riddance, I was breaking up with a girl that was moving to Ecuador, and I was trying to be as understanding about it as I could. I wrote the song as kind of a bon voyage. I was trying not to be bitter, but I think it came out a little bit bitter anyway… I thought that calling the song Time of Your Life was just a little too level-headed for me, so I had to come up with something different.
