American Dreams is the second single off of the ninth studio album of Papa Roach, Crooked Teeth. It was released on April 21st, 2017, roughly a month before the release of the album.

The lyrics of the song are politically shaped, which is very unusual for the band. According to lead vocalist Jacoby Shaddix, the song was inspired by the US presidential election 2016. In an interview published on http://www.elevensevenmusic.com lead vocalist Jacoby Shaddix said the following:

I was writing that [the song] during the presidential debates. When that was going down, I’m like, “I can’t even sit my kids down in front of the television and have ’em watch these two.” They seem like high schoolers. Like, bad high schoolers.

However, thematically, the song doesn’t deal with specific politicians, but rather with more general topics like war, crime and violence. The title, American Dreams, is a sarcastic use of the term that describes the values that America pretends to stand for (liberty, democracy, equality,… ), while in the lyrics, the negative sides of American society and politics in the lyrics are being pointed out.