One of UTG’s most beloved acts, The Wonder Years, are releasing a BRAND NEW album entitled The Upsides in late January 2010. The first song, “Washington Square Park,” has been upload to both their MYSPACE and PUREVOLUME. Listen to the song then look below for the lyrics and an explanation on the meaning behind the track!

Washington Square Park Lyrics & More
Washington Square Park

Im not going to go into how many talks we had in the van about what song you should hear first. Suffice to say that it was quite a few. We weren’t sure if we wanted to show you guys our favorite. Fuck, we weren’t sure which song was our favorite. After months of working on this record, I’m attached to every track. We decided to lead off with Washington Square Park because we think its the best microcosm of the record. The lyrics and explanation of the song are below and I think they say anything I want to say. I hope it ends up meaning something to you. Recently, I’ve had a bad couple weeks and when I get shaky, this has been the song to stabilize me. Sometimes you’ve gotta learn to take your own advice.

Lyrics –
I’m looking for the upsides to these panic-attack nights where I’m staying in eating take-out food by TV light. I’m trying to play the b-side to this awkward life of mine. You could flip me over, I’d sing a few lines about how I’m so used to shooting myself in the kneecaps, standing in the way of progress or letting down my friends. I’m nailing shards of hope together to put something over my head because you know here it’s always raining and it happened again. It happened again. She said, “I let this slide when we were younger. You know you don’t have to write like this. The whole world’s full of losers. If you get a chance to win, take it.” I stood on the roof with Matt and Molly. Watched the gray slide off the city because it’s finally spring. We rode our bikes over to 6th Street, to Washington Square Park to see if the tides would turn for me. I left a lot of blood in California on our first trip out west. I was younger and restless back then and I thought, if no one’s in my corner, since everyone left, I’d better make it worth it.

Song Explanation –
“This is the song that named the record. I was sick of looking at life like I was letting everyone down—like I was letting myself down. This song chronicles everything that came together to show me that I wasn’t doing things the right way. I used to destroy myself. I’m still not really sure why. I guess I had myself convinced that there was some sort of artistic merit to it. I mention it in the chorus and at the end of the song. In other bands, I used to write depressing lyrics even if I wasn’t depressed because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. I used to break my face open with my microphone on stage during the early Wonder Years tours because I felt like nobody gave a shit about me and that I shouldn’t give a shit about myself. This is a song about changing that. My whole life I would tend to look at things from the downside. It was time to flip the record over and see what else I had in me. This is a song for anyone who’s ever told me to keep my head up. You were right.” – Soupy

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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