This Pop Punk Band Just Made the Song of The Times. Unsurprisingly, It's Bleak.

I’ve loved pop punk music since I discovered it as a lonely teen in the late 2000s. While my music taste has diversified since, there are a few bands that I keep up with because as they grow and change, I tend to do the same in alignment with them.

The Wonder Years is one of my favorite bands, and they’re prepping for a new album release “The Hum Goes on Forever” which will be out September 23, 2022. They’ve released a few songs, but there’s something about their new track “Low Tide” that made me sit down and stare at a wall for 10 minutes, just because I was blown away at how seen I felt in that moment. 

Dan (Soupy) Campbell, the lead singer, had this to say about the song:

“‘Low Tide’ is out now. I think the best way to sum it up is, the first time I (Dan) played through the end of it to show everyone what I was thinking lyrically. There was a weird, long pause after I finished playing and then Matt kinda half-jokingly said, ‘Hey man, are you ok?’ I wasn’t—I mean, who was over the last few years?—but I’m working on it. This is a song for working on it—one to yell while you’re finding your way out.”

“Low Tide” is out now. I think the best way to sum it up is, the first time I (Dan) played through the end of it to show everyone what I was thinking lyrically /1https://t.co/9MRqSLPst5 pic.twitter.com/ISZdLOfsgQ

— The Wonder Years (@thewonderyears) July 27, 2022

The lyrics speak to that completely. 

When I listened to this song, I swore Dan had read my diary and turned the words into lyrics. A few artists have spoken about how messy and chaotic the past few years have been, but The Wonder Years confronts it head-on in this song. Not only that, but they speak to the mental health toll of it all – the suicidality, depression, desperation, and collective despair that comes with living in the 2020s. 

“I’m staring at the wall, ‘cause the only news is bad news.

I’m waiting to fall—I’m the rain cloud in your living room.

I keep making lists of shit to tell my therapist—

the reasons I wish I didn’t exist.

I’m sinking fast. I’m taking everyone down with me.

Alone at last somewhere in South Jersey.

My breath fogs up my glasses. Smoke hangs heavy in the wind.

I’m reading up on black holes, hoping one might take me in.”

Sometimes we need music to uplift us and make us feel like we can get out of whatever rut that we’re currently in. Other times, we need music to meet us where we are, serving as nothing more than a casual “sup” nod acknowledging just how shitty everything is and that we aren’t alone. This song makes me think of the times I sit with a close friend on the couch doing my best to ignore how horrible my news feeds are, but I can’t.

Sometimes you just need to feel seen and understood, and I believe this song does that.

If you haven’t listened yet, I definitely suggest that you do. It really is the perfect song to yell as you’re working through all of it, whatever “it” may be.