, the more it dawned on me that Billie Joe, despite the p-rock trappings, is really a power-pop guy and his choice of tracks to cover really underscores where his heart is. When I spoke with Billie Joe, he confirmed my instinct about pop and punk being more closely aligned than many might think. Billie Joe is living proof of that theorem, illustrated perfectly as he walked me through the album’s tune stack. It only makes sense that an album catalyzed by a pandemic should kick off with “I Think We’re Alone Now.” The song, written by Ritchie Cordell and an uncredited Bo Gentry, was a huge hit for Tommy James & The Shondells in 1967. The song’s narrative is truly cinematic. it’s a record you can, in a sense, see. It charted again 10 years later for Berkeley’s own power-poppers the Rubinoos (who are still at it, after more than 50 years) and again 10 years after that for the shopping mall-promoted ingenue Tiffany. Billie Joe’s version showed up during the early days of the pandemic. “The pandemic wasn’t politicized yet,” he says. “When I covered ‘I Think We’re Alone Now,’ it seemed there was an ‘all in this together’ attitude. I recorded it to make our fans happy because the Green Day 2020 tour was being postponed.”