Singer and chief songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong told Q magazine May 2009 that the topic of this mid-tempo rocker is about prescription drug junkies. He explained:

It’s about pharmaceuticals. A lot of people become junkies if they get the right prescription.

In the context of 21st Century Breakdown’s story, the song is likely sung from Gloria’s perspective as suggested by several facts:

• Throughout the song, there’s a sense of loss and self-loathing. It doesn’t sound like Christian, the man with fire and hatred in his heart, as expressed in songs like “Christian’s Inferno”, “Peacemaker” and “Horseshoes and Hand Grenades”.

• Gloria has been portrayed as a girl with a heavy drug problem in earlier songs like “Before the Lobotomy” and “¿Viva la Gloria? (Little Girl)”, which connects with the medicine-related lines in this song.

• Assuming that Gloria is now aware of Christian’s idolization of her, she could be using the line “I feel like I’ve been crucified” to describe the intense and prolonged suffering she’s experiencing, but also in order to ironically compare herself to Jesus in Christian’s twisted religious sense.