THE GREATEST GENERATION

A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THE WONDER YEARS AND THEIR MASTERPIECE

Written by Tim Strong

The year 2013 was quite an eventful one for music, boasting an abundance of memorable moments both good and bad: from the superstar transition of Miley Cyrus with her album “Bangerz” to the “Harlem Shake” phenomenon to the breakout of artists like Lorde to the controversy of Robin Thicke’s uncomfortable number one hit “Blurred Lines” and much, much more. But arguably the best musical moment of 2013 happened far from the glamor of chart-topping hits and major superstars – that moment being the release of “The Greatest Generation”, the fourth and, according to many, best album by pop-punk band The Wonder Years. I believe that, just like this band and their entire catalog, this album gets far from its just amount of recognition, which is why I have put together this guide to the album, taking you through each song, highlighting all of the best moments and ranking the 13-song tracklist.

Before we get into that, however, let’s start with the story of how the band reached this point.

PART 1: BEFORE “THE GREATEST GENERATION”: WHO ARE THE WONDER YEARS?

The Wonder Years, sharing their name with the 1988 sitcom, are an American pop-punk band from Lansdale, Pennsylvania, a northwestern suburb of the state’s biggest city, Philadelphia. The band was formed in 2005 after the dissolution of the band The Premier by the latter’s former members, most of which remain The Wonder Years Members to this day. The heart and soul of the band is its frontman, vocalist Dan Campbell, often known by his nickname “Soupy”, an extremely gifted singer and especially writer, which could partially be accredited to his background in teaching English – the man responsible for giving the band their mature, thoughtful edge. The other members of the band are guitarists Matt Brasch and Casey Cavaliere, bass player Josh Martin, drummer Mike Kennedy and keyboardist/guitarist Nick Steinborn. The band are famed for having a deeper and more introspective outlook and perspective than most bands in the genre, delving deep into mental health struggles, grief and other similar topics.

The Wonder Years released their more light-hearted debut album “Get Stoked On It!” in 2007 (they have since disowned this era, arguably with good reason), but the more grown-up, serious ethos of the band wasn’t born until their 2010 sophomore record “The Upsides”. That album dropped the off-kilter synth-infused sound and switched to darker themes. Campbell had originally been working on an album about giving up, but changed his stance to adopt an “I’m not sad anymore, I’m just tired” attitude, culminating in the opening track, “My Last Semester”, written as an collective summary of the members’ college experiences, talking about the alienating nature of their educations.

Crucially, “The Upsides” served as the start to a new direction for The Wonder Years, eventually becoming the first installment in a trilogy of albums the band would release between 2010 and 2013, with the third installment of said trilogy being our main focus today.

The second installment of said trilogy was 2011’s “Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now I’m Nothing”, taking influence and inspiration from Allen Ginsberg’s 1956 poem “America”, greatly exceeding its predecessor in aspects from the production to the writing to the vocals and riffs. The record expanded on the themes of fear, loneliness and not fitting in from “The Upsides”, with its centerpiece once again being the opener. “Came Out Swinging”, written by Campbell about his feelings after giving up his aspirations of becoming a secondary school English teacher and breaking up with his girlfriend, bearing incredibly impactful lines such as “I’ve spent this year as a ghost, and I’m not sure where home is anymore” or “I spent the winter writing songs about getting better, and if I’m being honest, I’m getting there”.

The progress the band was making with time was obvious, but it was about to be made exponentially more obvious between “Suburbia…” and their fourth album, and the last in the trilogy, “The Greatest Generation”.

In February of 2013, the compilation album “Sleeping on Trash: A Collection of Songs Recorded 2005–2010” was released, including a variety of tracks from “Get Stoked On It!” and the 2008 EP “Won’t Be Pathetic Forever”. This was to be a calm-before-the-storm moment, a sign that there were many things to come. And those things were brilliant.

PART 2: THE LEADUP, THE MAKING, THE MEANINGS

“The Greatest Generation” was written in a small apartment just above a closed sandwich shop, recorded in the first two months of 2013, and produced by Steve Evetts, who also produced “Suburbia…”. On March 19th, a trailer video for the album was released. The album’s title was a reference to the notion that “The Greatest Generation” was the generation that fought in World War II, but within the context of the record, as stated by Campbell in the video trailer, also symbolized the end of his war against anxiety and depression. War becomes a central theme throughout the record as well. Campbell also stated that “The Greatest Generation” was the third installment in a trilogy about growing up. Just six days after the video trailer was released, on March 25th, the first single from the record, “Passing Through A Screen Door”, was released on the now-defunct website AbsolutePunk, debuting as a single on streaming platforms two days later. April 15th saw the second single, “Dismantling Summer”, released through Alternative Press, also hitting streaming a day later.

The album cycle was in full swing, and the full record was released to the world on May 14th, 2013. The cover featured a photograph of a soldier, calling back to the meaning of the title, with a smiling devil drawn behind him, symbolizing the album’s (and the trilogy’s) themes of trauma, anxiety, guilt and loss.

In a 2023 video on Instagram, Dan Campbell mentioned five main images that reappear throughout the album: a devil, a ghost, a pill bottle, birds and bombs.

PART 3: THE GREATEST GENERATION

The tracklist of “The Greatest Generation”, as I mentioned previously, is comprised of 13 songs, and its total length is just under 49 minutes. All the lyrics were written by Dan Campbell, just like the band’s previous and forthcoming albums. Next up, we’re going to take a look at each track in the order in which they appear on the record, and take a look at the stories they tell and themes they explore.

TRACK ONE

“There, There” (2:26)

“I’m sorry I don’t laugh at the right times

Is this what it feels like, with my wings clipped?

I’m awkward and nervous

I’m awkward, and nervous”

The album opens up in incredibly strong fashion with “There, There”. The song is centered on the theme of not fitting in properly in society, sparking speculation of being about a soldier coming back home with PTSD. The intro is incredibly subtle, setting up the premise with lines about getting in the way of people around the narrator. Then the energy of the song is boosted considerably by the excellent main riff. The second verse goes further into detail about the narrator’s struggles (“I know how it feels, when I’m always staring off into nothing, I’m lost in my head again”), before the song absolutely explodes into its chorus, with Dan belting out the line that initially set off the riff, “I’m sorry I don’t laugh at the right times”, to start off the chorus and a more powerful version of the riff. The track’s emotional weight is very high, with the extremely sincere and genuine vocal performance being complimented excellently by the incredible instrumentation. I love how the guitar riff and bass line harmonize with one another. The bridge, which, intentionally or not, is similar rhythmically to the a slowly but powerfully pounding heart, talks about the narrator wearing his own heart on his sleeve, and also makes a reference to tenements, Industrial Revolution and Great Depression-era buildings which were home to many underprivileged people, helping to begin building the atmosphere of the early to mid-20th century, which comes back in different forms throughout the album’s duration. The final chorus, used as the epigraph in this segment, introduces new lines and rounds out the song with a final, desperate statement (“I’m awkward and nervous”).

In conclusion, “There, There” is one of the strongest tracks on the album, which is to say one of the best in the band’s discography. There was truly no better way to set up the record that lies ahead, I would say every member plays their part on this track absolutely perfectly. It also works excellently as a predecessor to the song directly after it on the tracklist.

 TRACK TWO

“Passing Through a Screen Door” (3:35)

“Jesus Christ, I’m 26

All the people I graduated with

All have kids, all have wives

All have people who care if they come home at night

Jesus Christ, did I f**k up?”

The second track on the album and the first of two singles, “Passing Through a Screen Door” is arguably the best song that The Wonder Years have ever made. In my view, it is the main highlight of the record, and also the most sincere-sounding and expressive track on it. The title of the song very nearly abbreviating to PTSD seems like no coincidence either, as this makes the song and the issues it talks about fit in very well with the concept and themes of the album.

Where “There, There” gives the listener some time to get immersed into the atmosphere of the track, this one starts off explosively right from the first second. The opening line of “cigarette smoke dances back in the window” will get etched into your memory for a long, long time as soon as you hear it – it’s not the most insightful or personal line on the track, but it sticks because of the unbelievable amount of power Dan puts into it and how heartfelt it sounds. The intro generally introduces the song’s main concept through the following lines (as well as becoming the first appearance of the image of ghosts on the record): “I’m conjuring ghosts on a forty hour ride home, and they keep asking me what I’m doing with my life; my cousins go to bed with their wives, I’m feeling like I’ve fallen behind” – laying the foundations of the regret and the misery of Campbell comparing himself to the people around him in his life and weighing their success against his own failures.

And after the intro, the track doesn’t drop the pace for a second all the way until the two and a half minute mark, steamrolling through two verses where an extremely bitter and regretful Campbell introduces some really interesting and captivating sentiments, parallels and comparisons: a reference to “Me Vs. The Highway” from the “Suburbia…” deluxe edition (“well the highway won”); comparing his feelings to the tumultuous post-war period, and introducing the image of bombs to the album (“I’m terrified like a kid in the sixties, staring at the sky, waiting for the bomb to fall”), followed immediately by the dismissal of the much-loved concept of things being consistent “and it’s all a lie, what they say about stability, it scares me sometimes, the emptiness I see in my eyes” and much more. I believe the strongest and most cutting sentiment comes from the end of the second verse, where he talks about not wishing to pass his pain and struggles on to his future children “I don’t want my children growing up to be anything like me.”

The chorus serves its own important purpose too, with Soupy talking about “looking for tears in the screen door” symbolizing him searching for imperfections and blemishes in any situation, which would serve as an excuse for him to run away from his pain once more; followed by him outright proclaiming that he’s “been waiting for another disaster”. The second time around, the chorus is ended with the lines “I was kinda hoping you’d stay” – another reference to an older song, this time “This Party Sucks” from “The Upsides”; but even more importantly, these lines lead into the most powerful part of the whole track.

That part is the bridge, where the energy briefly drops, setting up the fact the narrator is always ready to leave everything at a moment’s notice and run “I keep a flashlight and the train times, but you wouldn’t understand, how could you understand?”, before utterly exploding into a self-reflective negative epiphany-like outcry about letting time slip away and watching everyone else achieving something while he does not (these lines are in the epigraph of this section). The song then rounds of with another chorus, bringing together the perfect picture of a man who is lost and endlessly stagnating, constantly trying and failing to escape the rut he’s grown to hate but has stayed in for so long.

TRACK THREE

“We Could Die Like This” (3:38)

“Operator, take me home,

I don’t know where else to go

I wanna die in the suburbs

A heart attack shoveling snow, all alone

If I die, I wanna die in the suburbs”

“We Could Die Like This”, the third track on “The Greatest Generation”, is considerably faster-paced than the first two. It also follows a different theme, while still sticking to some central elements. This one is all about the meaning and value of the town that you grew up in. The first verse kicks off with a description of the memories returning in vague images, smells and more. A reference in that part that I find interesting is that to True Blue cigarettes (“the whole world smells like True Blue, the only brand my grandma smokes”), because these particular cigarettes were introduced in the mid-1960s, making this reference once again add to the album’s retro atmosphere. The pre-chorus once again ties together parts of the trilogy, with its two lines being nods to “Woke Up Older” and “My Life As A Pigeon” from “Suburbia…”.

The chorus, which you’ll find in the epigraph, once again brings back the theme of being lost and not being able to find a direction, with Campbell stating that he doesn’t have anywhere in the world left but his old home in the suburbs. I think this image is very powerful and reflects a lot of people’s genuine thoughts and life situations in a way that is simple but extremely effective.

The second verse goes a little darker than the first, making allusions to the ruthlessness of the Pennsylvania climate (“these northeast winters make boys into men”), talking about how things became more difficult with time (“the city just felt worn out, no strength to pick our hearts off the ground”) and rounding it off with a reference to the tragic passing of American footballer and Philadelphia Eagles star Jerome Brown in a plane crash in 1992, marking a dark time for all sports fans in the area, including Dan himself. The second pre-chorus is also far more somber than the first, talking about the suburban mentality making struggling with anxiety or depression exceedingly difficult (“we keep quiet when it gets bad, we don't talk about the setbacks, they only hear it when your voice cracks”).

I really enjoy the band’s work on this song, with subtle touches such as the bass carrying a majority of the second verse on its own along with the vocals, the riffs inbetween parts of the verses and the drum fills benefiting the track hugely. This is especially evident in the final portion of the track, where the instrumental briefly cuts out altogether for a softer chorus which seems to be the end, before kicking back in in full and going through some really interesting and powerful instrumental variation as Soupy delivers the final chorus.

TRACK FOUR

“Dismantling Summer” (3:46)

“I've been acting like I'm strong but

The truth is, I've been losing ground

To a hospital too crowded, a summer winding down

I hadn't seen a heart break until now

I hadn't felt a heartbreak until now”

The fourth track and the second and final single from the album, “Dismantling Summer” introduces a third of the album’s main images in pill bottles (“I'm filling your prescriptions, the orange bottles stare me down, they're standing at attention, an army on your windowsill”). The song was written about an incredibly difficult event in Soupy’s life – his grandfather suffered a heart attack and had to have a triple-bypass heart surgery. Thankfully he survived, but this period was still clearly traumatic for Campbell, and “Dismantling Summer” serves as a fantastic reflection of that. It’s also, in a sense, a letter to the band’s fans explaining the cancellation of multiple tours which happened due to Dan’s understandable desire to be with his grandfather. This is referenced rather clearly on the bridge (“if I’m in an airport, and you’re in a hospital bed, well then, what kind of man does that make me?”) and at the end of the second verse (“I’ve been putting off long flights, hoping that you’ll be alright, I’ll be there in the meantime”). As for the rest of the song, it includes a strong guitar riff, an emotional but extremely catchy chorus (see epigraph) and two incredibly written verses. The lyrics of this song aren’t in any way complex, but they don’t need to be at all: Campbell simply and infectiously expresses the worry and uncertainty he and his family felt during this insanely trying time (“we’re all praying for good news, hoping that you’ll come home soon”) and additionally mentions how close he was to his grandfather as a child (“I grew up on your back porch”), which explains why he feels so strongly about the situation. Overall, I believe this is one of the most concise and well-painted pictures on the record, which also happens to include one of the strongest hooks and one of the best riffs on the album.

TRACK FIVE

“The Bastards, The Vultures, The Wolves” (3:55)

“Jake says I got good intentions

And I said that I hope he's right

Cause I've been burning every bridge

That I can f**king find tonight

The devil's got a rifle on my front porch

With me in his sights

He knows I came looking for a fight”

The impressive opening stretch of the album continues with the fifth track, “The Bastards, The Vultures, The Wolves”. This song’s intro picks up the pace considerably from the slower, more pensive “Dismantling Summer”, exploding into action, the somewhat aggressive sound of the fast drums and the instrumental in general perfectly supporting the opening lyric, “I’m angry like I’m eighteen again”. It takes a slightly different approach in comparison to the outside forces putting pressure on the narrator and causing him to feel out of place; in this case, on the first verse they’re presented as “the bastards and the vultures” – this can narrowly be interpreted as detractors and doubters, but I personally believe that the true message of this song is much broader than that. The pre-chorus talks about an attempt to get away, just let it all temporarily fade away (“Bury me at sea, let’s pretend it’s all a bad dream; Let me get some sleep, we’ll deal with it in the morning”).

The chorus paints the perfect picture of the lifestyle Campbell finds himself in where he isn’t sure of what he’s doing, the one he tries to hide from in his sleep but he eventually can’t run from, bursting into a half-time drum beat for the first half then picking the tempo back up, showing off the chaos perfectly. “I’m waking up to gospel radio and sleeping with my clothes on” is the opening line of this part of the song – Campbell has been very vocal in his dislike of organized religion, so it is highly unlikely that he would be willingly listening to gospel radio; instead, this portrays the lifestyle of tour-related travel throughout different parts of the country he finds himself in, where he has little say over the definition of his own life, over how his days are spent. The next line represents his feeling of dismay and confrontation with this lifestyle – “I ended up as food for wolves for trying to take the world on”. The chorus is then rounded off with “I’m wondering where you would be without me” – an underlying statement on how he is taking thoughts of what the world would be like without him and using them to conclude that it’s better place with him.

The second verse has a couple of important lyrical moments too: the bomb makes a return “Now I’m stuck holding a bomb with a fuse that’s still lit”, and also there’s a reference to the previously mentioned “Came Out Swinging” from “Suburbia…”, flipping its title to tie into the picture of the struggles detailed in the song “And yeah, I came out swinging, but I’m still walking out with two black eyes and a split lip”.

The bridge, to which you saw the lyrics at the start of this song’s entry, builds with a long, constant drum roll, becoming louder and more erratic, talking about serious issues involving self-isolation and self-doubt, as well as introducing the devil for the first time “the devil’s got a rifle on my front porch…”; it eventually switches into something far more defiant, saying that he “came here looking for a fight”, that he’s not going to surrender to the devil and is going to keep battling. The phrase “I came here looking for a fight” repeats till the end of the song, with lyrics from the pre-chorus appearing in the background, slowly fading into a wall of noise, eventually coming to a loud, concluding beat.

TRACK SIX

“The Devil In My Bloodstream” (4:05)

“Two blackbirds on a highway sign

Are laughing at me at four in the morning

They played the war drum out of time

So I’m not sure where I’ve been marching

I want to be strong, but it’s not easy anymore

I’m hoping I’m wrong”

Next up, we come to what I believe is comfortably another of the most stellar cuts from this record. This track gives a new context to the figure of the devil, with the devil in the bloodstream being depression. The song starts with rhythmic, marching piano hits, with an occasional extra note or chord overlaid, as Dan describes the environment where the song takes place, beginning to build the atmosphere. Campbell traveled to the American Midwest for his great grandfather’s funeral, and it provoked many regretful, negative feelings. Beginning the song lyrically with lines about humans making animals go extinct and replacing nature with their own settlements (“We wiped out all the buffalo around the turn of the last century, and so it’s factories and saw grass, wheat fields and asphalt laid in front of me”), and filling up everything around them but failing to defeat the empty feeling of the vast land (“The Midwest feels like a hollow place that we filled with love and industry”). It then makes a direct allusion to the funeral (“And we’re staring at the frozen ground in Goodwill suits, silent as the pastor reads the eulogy”).

Soon after comes the first iteration of the chorus, still soft and subtle over the slowly building piano and gradually introduced soft guitar and bass. The lyrics, which you see above, reflect the narrator’s desperation, and how deep he has been sinking into his tortured mental state, imagining the entire world mocking him, such as birds on a sign; blaming his lost position in life on a lack of proper guidance, or the out-of-time war drum; and admits how much he is struggling outright with the last two lines.

The second verse introduces the main topic of the song. As the piano subtly gets louder and louder, Campbell details exploring his great grandfather’s memoirs for signs of the depression he suffered from, and begins to seek out connections: “And so I searched through my great grandpa’s memoirs for the devil in my bloodstream”. He details the struggles that his great grandfather went through and couldn’t fully handle “Depression grabbed his throat and choked the life out of him slowly”, before saying he’s bound to meet the same fate due to their relation: “I’ve got the same blood coursing through my veins, it’ll come for me eventually”.

During that last line, the piano suddenly builds up tenfold, after which the song comes to an eruption: Campbell exclaims, going up an octave: “I bet I’d be a f***ing coward, I bet I’d never have the guts for war”, and guitars and drums burst in all at once. The third verse and the rest of the song keep up this new energy level, giving the song an incredible crescendo dynamic to represent the breakdown and increasing despair and hopelessness of the narrator.

After the third verse comes a much higher-intensity version of the chorus that had come in earlier, giving it an entirely new feeling. It’s succeeded by the bridge, which introduces the line “I know how it feels to be at war with a world that never loved me”, once again tying the song into the concept of a war, adding to the previous allusions and references to it. The song then goes for one last chorus, which trails off after “I want to be strong”, and goes back to a lower-key sound, with Soupy going back down an octave to end things off with the conclusion of the entire song – “I want to be strong, but it’s not easy anymore”.

Overall, this song is an incredible emotional highlight on the album, representing an entire emotional rollercoaster, taking the listener on a wild ride through the narrator’s troubled mind. I believe every element here is places just right and comes together perfectly.

TRACK SEVEN

“Teenage Parents” (3:38)

“All we had were hand-me-downs

All we had was good will

And you always said it would get better

When you’re young and you’re poor

They hang on your failures”

Next up, we have another track that goes back into exploring Soupy’s background, his childhood and roots. “Teenage Parents”, as you can imagine from the title, talks about his household when he was growing up, as his parents were very young when they had him, over another fast-paced instrumental with a strong opening riff which comes back after each chorus.

Lyrically, the track starts with mentioning that Campbell’s parents were rarely home at the same time, with his father working nights and his mother leaving for work in the mornings, both forced to work long, grueling hours for the family’s livelihood (“You came in just in time to catch her as she’s leaving, but the schedules and the conflicts kept a roof over our heads”). He talks about seeing his parents struggling and not believing he could cope with that kind of stress himself (“I don’t think I would’ve had the guts to handle it”).

The first chorus, which I included the lyrics to in the epigraph, details the constant fight against life’s circumstances and the constant hope for a brighter future; it also includes a play on “good will” and “Goodwill”, with the former linking to the first line – the good will of the relatives giving the hand-me-downs – and the latter referencing the second-hand store, which was the only place Campbell’s family could afford to buy clothes from.

The second verse further details the family’s life and problems, continuing to complete the atmosphere. The central event is the Storm of the Century in 1993, during which Soupy and his family “got by with kerosene” – they had a single kerosene heater to stop them from freezing in their cold house. He talks about struggling with sleep due to the cold and the smell of smoke staying on his clothes for lengthy periods of time. The second chorus brings back the image of the ghost, adding the line “but I’m sick of seeing ghosts, I won’t be here forever”, implying that these recollections about his childhood, as dear as they may be, aren’t helping him, and instead are just leaving him caught up on the past rather than living his life in the present.

The bridge provides one last, heart-wrenching set of details: his mother not being able to afford a wedding dress and getting married in a sundress instead, and especially the lines “Well I was just one then, I would never remember it, but I heard the voices, the implications, telling me who I could never be”, which could either be indicating that his parents being so young meant people were already writing off his life at the earliest stages or that people were saying he can’t turn out like his parents, desperately poor and with a child while still teenagers.

Overall, “Teenage Parents” offers an incredibly compelling look into the past, into the background of how the man behind the songs reached the point where he was at the time of writing all this album. I believe this song doesn’t get talked about enough when this album is mentioned, as I think it’s one of the strongest lyrically, and has some compelling musical moments too.

TRACK EIGHT

“Chaser” (3:54)

“Please don't make me feel like a disaster

I'm learning how to put the pieces back together

And turn the aching to composure”

“Chaser” is probably one of the less incredible tracks on the album, but that’s not at all to say that it isn’t good: quite the contrary, it’s got a very strong hook and good instrumental ideas throughout. It’s just that it feels a little more general, a little less focused – in other words, the emotion doesn’t quite hit on this one for me personally as much as it does on some of the other songs.

I’ll start by talking about the instrumental on this one because it’s my favorite part of the track. The beat is relatively fast-paced, the intro riff is energetic and does well opening the song up with a great deal of energy. The main highlight of the song, unquestionably, is the guitar solo after the second chorus – the only one on the album, but a very strong one nonetheless, adding to the feel of the track tremendously.

Lyrically the song addresses issues with drinking, talking about a blackout incident “they found me on your neighbor’s lawn, rambling on, dizzy and upset and freezing cold”, and about other issues with Soupy losing his cool or any sort of reason when drunk and how he’s trying to get past that. Despite what I said earlier, I still think this track carries some power in its description of the struggles of a man shaking a toxic habit. This, as most of the rest of the record, coincides with real life: at the time this album came out, Soupy had become completely sober, avoiding smoking, drinking and doing drugs.

I believe that this song plays a really important part in the album’s flow, as the ones around it often focus more on emotional aspects, but a lot of this one return firmly back to earth, mostly foregoing higher, more mysterious concepts like death, heartbreak, nostalgia and so on and sticking to real problems of the here and now for the narrator.

TRACK NINE

“An American Religion (FSF)” (2:16)

“Sorry for what's in the magazines

I know it wasn't fair of me,

But I'm spitting ink onto the pages like blood through broken teeth

I can see the gallows all lit up in neon just waiting for me

The limelight started burning”

The shortest track on the album, “An American Religion (FSF)” still manages to raise some interesting themes despite its just over two minute runtime. An incredibly snappy, upbeat song, it talks about Campbell’s disdain for interacting with media and for certain sides of fame. “The limelight started burning” from the first verse is particularly indicative of its content. He talks about how things you say can be twisted by the people interviewing you or how you can accidentally have things come out wrong or different to how you intended; on the chorus he says “they’re all paying for bullets to shoot at my feet, does that make you happy”, both alluding to the fact that he feels like the media are trying to paint him as a worse person, and also that they’re “shooting at his feet” so he would act just as they want him to.

The second verse draws a parallel between Dan and President Truman, talking over an incredibly chunky isolated bass and drum part about how the latter will “always be remembered for dropping the bomb”, whereas the former will “always be remembered for his f***-ups”, alluding to the fact that whatever he says or does wrong will be documented in detail. He talks about how despite all of it he remains the same person as he was before, referencing a place that had appeared on a previous record, this time “Richie’s basement” from “And Now I’m Nothing” from this album’s predecessor. The verse closes out with a tragic set of lines about how many people Soupy has seen fall victim to painkillers, most likely opioids as they were very widespread in the 1990s, and about how he feels tempted to drown all his complicated emotions, his anxiety and his depression out with substances, but refuses to allow himself to slip away: “I knew a lot of talented kids who got lost in painkillers and turned into nothing, sometimes I can still feel it pulling but I just can't let that happen”. Another chorus then rounds out the song.

Despite how short it is, “An American Religion (FSF)” is still a significant and well-placed component of the album in my opinion; just like all the others, it plays its part brilliantly in connecting the picture of a man struggling with many different aspects of his life.

Additionally, while we’re talking about this track, I think it’s worth mentioning the meaning of the abbreviation of the title. According to a comment made by Campbell, the band would give all their demos joking temporary titles while they worked on them, and the one for this song was “F*** School Forever”; the band eventually decided to keep the abbreviated version of this title in the final release as a little reminder of the original titles to themselves and as a little Easter egg of sorts.

TRACK TEN

“A Raindance In Traffic” (3:39)

“I was just happy to be a contender

I was just aching for anything

And I used to have such steady hands but

Now I can't keep 'em from shaking”

Moving into the final stretch of the album, we come to “A Raindance In Traffic”. The track is kicked off by a typically fast-paced intro riff, before kicking off with the title, setting up the imagery of the track – the desire to summon a wave that would come and sweep away all that is troublesome and stressful, because things are becoming a little too much to handle: “I’m fantasizing about doing a rain dance in traffic, I’m fantasizing about a storm to wash me away; Well if you study the laugh lines, you’d see that I’m cracking”.

This song makes multiple references to the 1980 Martin Scorsese film “Raging Bull”, and the first of these comes in the pre-chorus, where Campbell talks about “the fighter” in him. However, he says that this fighter “must’ve died a long time ago” and that he “must’ve been watching his ghost”, indicating that, while he didn’t immediately notice this, his strength to keep moving and keep fighting has ebbed away.

The chorus is brief, but very indicative of the state the narrator finds himself in, talking about the tumultuous nature of life and of pretending everything is okay (“Just going through the motions, just putting on a face”), before once again bringing the album back to the first half of the 20th century by comparing his fractured mental state to the stock market crash of the time (“It feels like 1929 and I’m on the verge of the great collapse today”). Though it has been speculated that this line may be about the thousands of suicides after the stock market crash, I believe that it is most likely a comparison to the crash itself.

The second verse brings up two of the album’s central themes: the first is the feeling of being trapped, lost, unable to go somewhere where things could improve (“Every window in this house faces a brick wall, I'm panicked and absent like a bird in a cage”); the second is the ever-present war imagery: “The word from the front lines says that we're out-gunned, but I can’t walk away” – this example specifically a metaphor for the uneven fight between Soupy and his mental issues. This line is also one of the main reasons I believe that the mention of the “great collapse” on the chorus is not about the people that took their own lives – because Dan states that he “can’t walk away” despite how tough things are.

The bridge provides a summary and is a crucial part of the song and the album overall. I used the lyrics to it as the epigraph, but I’ll go over them briefly anyway. “I was just happy to be a contender” is another reference to “Raging Bull”, or possibly directly to 1954’s “On The Waterfront”, where the monologue that is being referenced comes from. “I was just aching for anything” is a simple line about how eager and ready to take on the world we are when we’re young, how happy to do whatever we feel like we are without regard for potential consequences.

“I used to have such steady hands, but now I can’t keep them from shaking” is, in my opinion, one of the best lines on the entire album. It involves a double meaning with a metaphor through the shaking hands. The first meaning is literal – his hands could just be shaking from anxiety. However, the second is that “steady hands” could be representing confidence, which, as this album indicates again and again, has slipped away from Soupy over time and left him exposed and desperate.

This being the central thesis of the song is driven home by the fact the bridge becomes the outro, with Campbell lamenting again and again about how he can’t keep his hands from shaking – or how he has lost his footing, lost his ground, left behind all that allowed him to stand up to the things getting him down and his self-belief.

TRACK ELEVEN

“Madelyn” (2:47)

“I don't think there's a god

I don't think that there's someone coming to save me

And I don't think that's the worst news of the day”

“Madelyn” is, perhaps, the most controversial track on the album. Many people don’t like the raw voice recording acoustic guitar sound of it, saying that it breaks the atmosphere and shouldn’t have been on the album. However, I couldn’t disagree more. Let’s start with the story of the song before diving a little into the content.

A draft of the track was recorded initially by Dan, Matt and Nick after the latter had written a song part on a chord organ. He wanted to record the part, so the trio got together in a practice space, and, as Campbell said on the band’s Instagram on July 25th, 2023, “threw an iPhone on the floor and played through the song on the other side of the room as kind of a joke, Matt did a cymbal roll with his hands and that was it, but when we listened to it, we loved it, there was something <…> cool and warm and real about it”. They then attempted to recreate the atmosphere in the studio, but struggled for a long time to do so. Campbell also said in the video that in retrospect it didn’t quite turn out the kind of low-fi they were aiming for and perhaps they should’ve just recorded it on an iPhone on the floor like they had done initially. In fact, he even said that the fact this song wasn’t quite the way he wanted it to be was his only regret about the record. He still seems to stand by the song overall, however.

And with good reason, because the content on this one is very well-constructed. The eponymous protagonist of this song is a deeply troubled and struggling woman, whose difficult emotions the narrator relates to and is greatly sympathetic and compassionate to. Throughout the song it becomes apparent that Madelyn moved away from where the narrator lived, but, just like him, cannot free herself from the shackles of her past, and instead chooses to drown out the pain (“I know that the ghosts still visit nightly, I know it must get lonely by the Chesapeake”). This notion also adds more context to the title of “The Devil In My Bloodstream” – whereas previously the phrase was used as a metaphor for depression, here it also symbolizes alcohol and drinking problems. Soupy tells Madelyn that he shares her nihilistic worldview (“Madelyn, I share your hate for this world we’re in”; “Madelyn, are you really afraid of death, or do you just say it if it’s the right thing to say?”) and warns her that the solution she’s going for isn’t good for her (“Madelyn, I know you want to let the bottles in, I know you think that they're all your friends, they're lying straight to your face”) and suggests that she comes back to the home she left (“I know you’re safe where you lay your head, but if you wanted to come back, got a place you can stay”).

We then come to what I believe to be the best part of the song; the lyrics to said part are the epigraph, but I believe these lines reflect the extent of how lost and close to losing all hope Campbell is almost better than anything else on the entire record: there’s nobody out there that is going to save us all, and yet still that’s not the worst news of even one single day.

After this section, the narrator highlights further parts of his life that he has in common with Madelyn, before it draws to a close on a repetition of “if I’m not doing right by my family” from earlier in the song, where Soupy says: “if I’m not doing right by my family, then what’s the point of this anyway?” Most analyses I’ve seen of this album don’t pick up on this, but, taking into account future references which we will discuss later, I believe that Madelyn is actually related to the narrator. This is why he alludes to family, and this is why he talks about them having “this East Coast blood” between them. Thus, I believe this song is arguably one of the most personal tracks on the album.

TRACK TWELVE

“Cul-de-sac” (3:38)

“I’m letting go

You know we can’t keep out of trouble

I thought my kids would call you uncle

I thought we’d never be alone

I’m letting go”

Speaking of personal tracks, the penultimate cut from this record, and another of the absolute best tracks on it, describes the extremely difficult and torturous process of a long-term bond severing, a friendship moving inexorably towards a dead end, or cul-de-sac, to be exact, hence the title. The track is another faster-paced one, providing a stark contrast with the slow and mellow “Madelyn” which comes before it. The riff on this one is also very strong.

The first verse paints the picture of the one-sided nature of what this once great friendship has become and how frustrating it is for the narrator (“I’ve been leaving messages on an answering machine, of a house that’s always empty so I know nobody’s listening, I’ve been confessing my transgressions over tape hiss, the silence makes me sick, no good can come from this”).

The chorus echoes the last line of the first verse, with Campbell realizing he can’t keep following the old patterns and needs to move away from this relationship that has faded away; the first half of it also alludes to the toxic nature of trying to keep things going in this case (“I’ve been hanging on like poison ivy out of cold suburban concrete”). The phrase “careless urban sprawl” then makes an appearance, referencing all the way back to the band’s 2008 EP “Won’t Be Pathetic Forever”, where it was used on the song “You’re Not Sallinger, Get Over It”; this once again reinforces the strong ties and personal nature within the band’s entire discography. The second half of the chorus, which you can see at the start of this section, serves as a lament on what could’ve been.

The second verse continues down that path, where Campbell reminisces about the times the two spent together. He referencing them shoplifting at a gas station – something that comes up on the 2008 track “Solo & Chewy: Holdin’ It Down” – and which, according to a 2023 story from the Wonder Years Instagram account, actually took place at a real gas station. He talks about how careless they were in their youth, and how they went about messing up every situation they entered because of it and didn’t care.

The bridge lays out the reasons the relationship fell apart: the narrator’s friend is separating himself from the world and giving himself over to drugs; Campbell doesn’t feel like he has the strength to help him out (“If you walked me home, then you’d know how weak my arms get; I just can’t carry you”). We find out that his friend seems to be explaining away his drug use (which brings in the image of the pill bottle once more) with spiritual goals, or, as Soupy puts it, “some bullsh*t pill bottle vision quest”. He then concludes the bridge by saying he doesn’t know when he’d “work up the backbone to walk alone” if his friend hadn’t separated himself from him of his own accord.

The last chorus switches some of the lyrics, bringing the arc of Campbell letting go to a conclusion with “I’m letting go, cause I love you, but I have to”, before ending the song with one more repetition of “if you walked me home”. The song then descends into soft noise, with a faint hint of drums slowly bleeding in at the very end, transitioning seamlessly into the final track on the album.

TRACK THIRTEEEN

“I Just Want to Sell Out My Funeral” (7:34)

“I just want to sell out my funeral

I just want to be enough for everyone

I just want to sell out my funeral

Know I fought until the lights were gone”

While this track is the final one on the record, it is, without question, the centerpiece of the album. Seven and a half minutes that fly by in a hurricane of cutting imagery and top-drawer instrumental passages, as the track concludes everything else that has appeared throughout the album. The title comes from a tweet Dan made on December 5th, 2009 about his great grandfather: “I only met my great grandfather once, but yesterday, he sold out his funeral. Must have been a great man. Reading his memoirs #theupsides” (the same memoirs, incidentally, that appeared in “The Devil In My Bloodstream”). This aim for receiving a similar send-off reoccurs throughout the song.

The first verse begins painting the summarized picture of Campbell’s mental struggles throughout the entire album, with some of the best lines on the entire record present in this section (“I spent my life weighed down by a stone heart, drowning in irony and settling for anything, somewhere down the line all the wiring went faulty, I'm scared sh*tless of failure and I'm staring out at where I wanna be”).

The chorus, which you can see in the epigraph, talks about the all-too-common problem of trying to appease everyone around oneself, which Soupy suffers from too, and addresses that he wants the view at the end of his life to be that he didn’t give up until the very end, despite all the things that he’s going through.

The second verse picks up the pace of the song, painting yet more pictures of Campbell’s surroundings, and the troubling thoughts that keep coming to his head. He uses “mild winters” as a metaphor for the points in time where his depression subsides somewhat, drawing the parallel with the usually fierce winters in Pennsylvania (“I'll stay thankful for mild winters, for every shot I got at anything”). He then goes on to call any explanations for the way he is “just f***ing excuses”, before finishing the verse with an interpolation of “The Bastards, The Vultures, The Wolves”, using the melody and the lyric “So bury me” from that song’s pre-chorus to round off the imagery of the second verse (“So bury me in the memories of my friends and family, I just need to know that they were proud of me”); this interpolation will become the first of many later on.

The first two verses gradually build up in their level of desperation, and the third reaches a peak in that sense, with Soupy crying out about how unlikely the American Dream is to actually come true, about his feeling of being abandoned and about his hope that he’s left behind the majority of his fears. The verse then concludes with a soft, somewhat meek “At least I hope so”, before moving into what I believe to be the most impressive section of the song from a musical standpoint.

The listener is greeted with an all-too-familiar set of lines: “I was just happy to be a contender, I was just aching for anything, I used to have such steady hands but now I can’t keep them from shaking…” This interpolation of “A Raindance In Traffic” kicks off an entire string of interpolations, the idea of which Campbell credits Casey Cavaliere with – in a 2023 Instagram video, Campbell says that Cavaliere suggested that since they wanted to bring back all the main images of the album, they should also bring back previous songs from the record. And that’s exactly what they do, with multiple extremely smooth transitions. The slow, low-key“A Raindance In Traffic” section moves directly into “There, There”, taking a small pause in the instrumental after the line “Oh I’m sorry I…”, before suddenly exploding to life with a transposed version of “I’m sorry I don’t laugh at the right times” from that song. After integrating the final chorus of “There, There”, the phrase “I’m awkward and nervous” is repeated four extra times, before switching to “I was kind of hoping you’d stay” from “Passing Through a Screen Door”. This line also repeats multiple times, evolving into “I need you to stay, Oh, God, could you stay? I need you to stay, I need you to stay, I need you…”. As this is happening, the instrumental thrashes and rages before descending into another quieter segment, where it introduces the bridge from “Dismantling Summer” (“If I’m in an airport…”), each line of which repeats multiple times; the instrumental once again builds to a more energetic segment. I believe this chaotic building and crashing wave-like structure of the instrumental in this segment is meant to reflect the unstable emotional state of the narrator, and it works incredibly well in doing so.

The next interpolation is one of two from “The Devil In My Bloodstream”, to be exact, the line “I know how it feels to be at war with a world that never loved me” from the song’s bridge. As the instrumental once again begins to build up, a second song is introduced, with the line “all we had were hand-me-downs” from “Teenage Parents” being audible in the background. Right before the beat drops, “If you walked me home” from the previous track, “Cul-de-sac” comes in; the three lines then repeat, overlapping with one another, over a pre-chorus instrumental segment, before the line from “Cul-de-sac” switches to “There’s no going home again” from “Chaser” and the song hits yet another emotional peak, dropping into the second interpolation of “The Devil In My Bloodstream” – an altered version of the first two lines of the chorus (“Two blackbirds on a highway sign, are laughing at me here, with my wings clipped”). This brings the direct interpolation segment to an end, moving instead into the fourth verse, though references to previous songs will still appear.

The first of these is a reference to “Passing Through A Screen Door”, and, at the same time, the final appearance of the bomb on the album (“staring up at the sky, but the bombs keep f***ing falling”). Next, the devil makes a final appearance too, doubling as a possible reference to “The Bastards, The Vultures, The Wolves” (“There’s no devil on my shoulder, he’s got a rocking chair on my front porch”). The last two lines, which bleed into the fifth and final verse of the song, kick off what I believe to be the best-written sequence of lines on the entire album, positioned perfectly to close the record out. Campbell says that he won’t let in the devil on his front porch, a gesture of fight and protest against the depression and anxiety getting him down, stating that he won’t let them completely defeat him.

The fifth verse starts with the line “I’m sick of seeing ghosts” from “Teenage Parents”, the last time a previously used line appears. This one is very important, being the final appearance of the ghost and also a way of saying that the past needs to be definitively left in the past. Soupy then explains that this place his life is in won’t see a grand, movie-like happy conclusion, that the question is just of not giving up the fight against sadness rather than achieving full-on happiness (“And I know, how it’s all gonna end, there’s no triumph waiting, there’s no sunset to ride off in”). Following this and ending the track and the album are my absolute favorite lines: “We all want to be great men, and there’s nothing romantic about it, I just want to know that I did all I could with what I was given”. This rounds everything off and sums it up perfectly, bringing back “He must’ve been a great man” from the aforementioned tweet, whether intentionally or not, and applying the final touch to this beautifully tragic picture of the struggling man at the center of the album. The track then fades out into noise, similar to “The Bastards, The Vultures, The Wolves”.

PART 4: HIGHLIGHTS AND RANKINGS

Now that we’ve gone through each song, I’d like to provide a few ratings of the best parts of it: the best choruses, best riffs, best lyrical fragments and best vocal performances, as well as an overall ranking of the entire tracklist.

TOP 5: CHORUSES

1.   The Devil In My Bloodstream

2.   There, There

3.   Passing Through a Screen Door

4.   We Could Die Like This

5.   I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral

TOP 5: RIFFS

1.   There, There

2.   Teenage Parents

3.   Dismantling Summer

4.   Cul-de-sac

5.   Chaser

TOP 5: LYRICAL FRAGMENTS

1.   I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral, verse 5

2.   Passing Through a Screen Door, bridge

3.   The Devil In My Bloodstream, chorus

4.   A Raindance In Traffic, bridge

5.   Madelyn, verse

TOP 5: VOCAL PERFORMANCES

1.   Passing Through A Screen Door

2.   I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral

3.   There, There

4.   Dismantling Summer

5.   The Devil In My Bloodstream

TRACKLIST RANKING

1.   Passing Through A Screen Door

2.   The Devil In My Bloodstream

3.   I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral

4.   There, There

5.   We Could Die Like This

6.   Cul-de-sac

7.   Teenage Parents

8.   Dismantling Summer

9.   A Raindance In Traffic

10.   The Bastards, The Vultures, The Wolves

11.   An American Religion (FSF)

12.   Madelyn

13.   Chaser

PART FIVE: 2013-2023 (+ BEST SONGS 2010-2023)

It has now been a full decade since the album’s release. Music’s landscape has changed monumentally, and The Wonder Years themselves have likewise evolved quite a bit, while still holding on to the core elements of what makes their music so special. “The Greatest Generation” was followed in 2015 by the much bleaker “No Closer To Heaven”, a concept album about the loss of a loved one, finishing off with that album’s title track, one of the best-written songs of Dan Campbell’s entire career, a desperately melancholic acoustic-guitar piece with filtered vocals. They then took a three-year hiatus, broken only by the release of “Burst & Decay (An Acoustic EP)” (named for a lyric from 2015’s “You In January”), which featured acoustic versions of previous tracks, before returning in 2018 with the somewhat less critically acclaimed, but still excellent record “Sister Cities”. In 2019, the band released a cover of R.E.M.’s hit “Losing My Religion”, which is excellent and which I strongly recommend checking out. The second volume of “Burst & Decay” followed in 2020. Two years after that, “The Hum Goes On Forever” was released, representing an entirely new stage in Soupy’s life: fatherhood. This album in particular showed evolution from the times of “The Greatest Generation”. The track “Oldest Daughter” is addressed to a girl named – of course – Madelyn, which is why I believe that the Madelyn from the eponymous 2013 track was a family member of Campbell’s. However, even more importantly than that, on “Passing Through a Screen Door”, Campbell says: “all the kids’ names I’ve ever liked are tied to tragedy”, and expresses general hope for his future children to be different from him in every way. “Wyatt’s Song (Your Name)”, a song dedicated to his firstborn son, calls back to this with its chorus (“Your name’s the only one I like”). It seems as though, while the darkness within Soupy’s soul that he’s suffered with is still very much present, there’s now at least something that helps him distance himself from it for certain periods of time.

In 2023, in honor of the tenth anniversary of “The Greatest Generation”, the band released “GODDAMNITALL”, an unreleased track recorded during the same time as the album which didn’t end up making the final tracklist. The track was received very warmly, and with good reason – it’s another of the strongest in their impressive discography. This release came with the 10-year deluxe box set of the record, and the announcement of the ten-year anniversary tour. In the meantime, however, I’d like to leave you with what I believe to be the ten best songs by The Wonder Years, excluding and including tracks from “The Greatest Generation”, as well as my personal ranking for their discography (not including “Get Stoked On It!” as I presume that is the way Soupy would want it to be anyway).

TOP 10: BEST THE WONDER YEARS TRACKS (excluding “The Greatest Generation”)

1. No Closer To Heaven, “No Closer To Heaven”, 2015

2. Oldest Daughter, “The Hum Goes On Forever”, 2022

3. GODDAMNITALL, “The Greatest Generation” 10-year anniversary box set, 2023

4. Came Out Swinging, “Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing”, 2011

5. Cigarettes & Saints, “No Closer To Heaven”, 2015

6. It Must Get Lonely, “Sister Cities”, 2018

7. My Last Semester, “The Upsides”, 2010

8. Living Room Song, “Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing (Deluxe Edition)”, 2012

9. Old Friends Like Lost Teeth, “The Hum Goes On Forever”, 2022

10. You In January, “No Closer To Heaven”, 2015

TOP 10: BEST THE WONDER YEARS TRACKS (including “The Greatest Generation”, tracks in bold italic)

1. Passing Through a Screen Door, “The Greatest Generation”, 2013

2. No Closer To Heaven, “No Closer To Heaven”, 2015

3. The Devil In My Bloodstream, “The Greatest Generation”, 2013

4. I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral, “The Greatest Generation”, 2013

5. There, There, “The Greatest Generation”, 2013

6. Oldest Daughter, “The Hum Goes On Forever”, 2022

7. GODDAMNITALL, “The Greatest Generation” 10-year anniversary box set, 2023

8. Came Out Swinging, “Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing”, 2011

9. Cigarettes & Saints, "No Closer To Heaven", 2015

10. It Must Get Lonely, “Sister Cities”, 2018

THE WONDER YEARS ALBUM RANKING

1. The Greatest Generation, 2013

2. No Closer To Heaven, 2015

3. The Hum Goes On Forever, 2022

4. Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing, 2011

5. Sister Cities, 2018

6. The Upsides, 2010 

PART 6: CONCLUSION

The Wonder Years are an extremely special band, standing alone within the pop-punk genre and, indeed, within all of rock music, particularly when it comes to their soul-piercing personal lyrics. Dan Campbell is, without a doubt, one of the most gifted songwriters of the modern era, and I believe that he deserves considerably wider recognition as such. The band has saved many people during dark times, and I am happy to be one of those people. Since writing this, I additionally attended the Manchester concert of the UK leg of the “The Greatest Generation” 10-year anniversary tour, which will also get a review some day. In the meantime, however, I thank you for reading this incredibly long love letter to my favorite band and their best work, and I hope to see you again soon. My name is Tim Strong, thank you, and goodbye.

We all want to be great men

And there’s nothing romantic about it

I just want to know that I did all I could with what I was given.