"I'd rather write something where my eyes are forward, not so much internal. I hope it makes people happy and creates a difference in some way, just by people recognizing themselves in the song." - Billie Joe (Rolling Stone, Aug. 11, 2016)

"A junkie on the verge of death, a gambler about to lose everything and a wounded soldier on the front lines are all characters in a slow-building, unsettling track. 'That was a very heavy song,' says Armstrong. 'Sometimes I run away from being too heavy. But sometimes it just comes out that way.' The chorus, 'I'm still breathing on my own' alludes to the fact that 'at some point, we're all going to have to be on life support,' says Armstrong. 'As time goes on, your thoughts get darker.'' (Track by Track Guide, Rolling Stone)

“To me, Still Breathing is about survival; about surviving some kind of hardship. That hardship could be a childhood memory, or else it could be drugs, or it could be someone who just came home from Afghanistan, say. It’s just about trying to find that common ground where you can survive with people. It’s a song about resilience.” — Billie Joe Armstrong (Kerrang, 2017)

“Yeah, talking about your health and your happiness, and feeling like you’re pushing yourself into a near-death experience. You’re just trying to make sense of a life that’s not perfect. Yeah. It’s one of the heaviest songs I’ve ever written.” — Billie Joe Armstrong (The I Paper, 2017)

“[Still Breathing is] about how people feel desperate, and just taking it day by day, especially with everything that’s going on right now. Was it cathartic and helpful to put my feeling about that time down in a song? Yeah, I think so. I was pretty clear-headed throughout the process. It felt pretty good.” — Billie Joe Armstrong (Kerrang, 2016)

“It goes from the life of a junkie to the life of a gambler to the life of a single mother and a soldier and how we’re all kinda intertwined." — Billie Joe Armstrong (Rolling Stone, 2016)