According to Brett, he wrote all the music and the lyrics in the chorus, while all Greg wrote was the verse and bridge lyrics.
Greg: "Our song 'American Jesus' is about the supposition that Jesus treats America differently than other countries. During the Gulf War, George Bush said, 'We'll win, because God is on our side!'. What an amazing statement!"[1]
Brett: "American Jesus is pretty self-explanatory. It's about the idiocy of people thinking that they've got God on their side in a war, or God on their side in any kind of dispute altogether. Or the stupidity of, actually, nationalism. The stupidity of thinking that any spiritual concept could even include the idea of nationalism."[2]
There are two promo CDs, one of which (released by Semaphore Records from Germany) includes Skyscraper and is extremely hard to find.
It was shot in 1993 and conceived, produced and directed by Gore Verbinski.
"The video was done guerilla style with a tiny budget, super 8 film, and no permits for locations. Friends and Epitaph employees were the extras strolling around downtown Los Angeles with giant hand painted styrofoam crosses that we made in the Epitaph warehouse. The desert footage was shot at a beautiful state park just two hours drive from town called Red Rock canyon."[3]
Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam does backing vocals.
The song was played during the Winter X-games on ESPN2 as background music, and MTV used to use the opening of the song during their Extreme Beach Competition show.
| 08/02 | added Video section - By wrong planet |
| 05/31 | Added song meaning by Greg - By wrong planet |