Lyrics Butch Walker – Summer Of ’89

1, 2, 3…

Whoa, oh, ho, oh-oh, whoa

Changing strings
Banging on things

Learned how to smoke
Told dirty jokes
Talked about loose girls from Rome
I made out with most of them
So I raised a toast to them
Especially now that I’m old

And they’re 45 with husbands who don’t like their wives
3 or 4 kids, make enough to survive
In their paper mill jobs
While their teen heartthrobs
Are playing in bands
Or they’re dead

Can I go back to when
I was the winner
Way before the rain came
And washed away the sinners?
Everyone was something and
Nothing was done right or wrong

Oh, oh, oh
Whoa, oh, ho, oh-oh, whoa

Smothering the cover of a ’69 summer
Played through a speaker of fuzz

Or he’s 46 and alone
Cast the heaviest stone
Suburban cover band playing bad to the bone
In a bath tub of meth
You can smell your own death
You know when you can’t look your past in the eye

Can I just go back to when
I was the winner
Way before the rain came
And washed away the sinners?
Everyone was something
And I could never do any wrong

Oh, oh, oh
Whoa, oh, ho, oh-oh, whoa

Went back to the woods
Where I hid all my goods
In a rusted out Cadillac door
We all get nostalgic
And fall for the hat trick
Of thinking it’ll be like before

Like the football jocks
Trying to please their pops
And the stoners aping everything their bad uncles taught
And the teachers who cared
More than I ever knew
They knew I played clubs
Let me sleep through school
And my day job boss
Who wrote it up as a loss
But let me leave when I wanted and I never got caught
Sleeping out on the field
In the back of my truck
Breaking into the bars
Stealing the beer and getting fucked
By a girl twice my age, making minimum wage
But the tan lines were good
And she had a good face
Is this what I’ve become?
Is this all I’ve become?
When do I become…?

I wanna go back to when
I was the winner
Way before the rain came
And washed away the sinners
Everyone was someone and
And I could never do any wrong

Oh, oh, oh
Whoa, oh, ho, oh-oh, whoa