Green Day’s 1997 hit “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” opens with the line:
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
It’s an effective way to start a song, especially paired with such a classic acoustic guitar riff. But it also demands we ask the question — does songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong know what a “fork in the road” is? (Or, did he when he wrote the song?)
A “fork in the road” is the point where one or more paths diverge from a single one, “forking” off from the main route. This presents a traveler with more than one option on which way to proceed, hence the phrase’s potency as a metaphor.
A fork in the road looks like this:
Armstrong’s choice of wording, then, “a fork stuck in the road” is inapt. You wouldn’t say the above fork is stuck in the road. It’s just in the road. A fork stuck in the road brings to mind something like this:
This is, of course, absurd, and wholly detached from the song’s themes of nostalgia and moving on.
What accounts for this titanic blunder? Some possibilities:
- It was a careless error on Armstrong’s part
- Armstrong included “stuck” to serve the song’s lyrical meter
- Armstrong does not know what a “fork in the road” is
Which is the right answer? Is it some combination of the three? I leave it to you to decide.