Looking at the world through the back seat window
Of my mother's Oldsmobile
Flying down Highway 301 and loving the way that it feels
To be running away from the darkness and anger
Leaving the heartache behind
On our way to a better tomorrow
Hoping that we might find
The good old days

At a roadside café, we stopped for dinner
And I got up to wash my hands
I saw a sign that said, ""For Whites Only""
And I didn't understand
How people could be divided by color
Here in the land of the free
Hell, even at eight years old I knew
It wasn't how it's supposed to be
In the good old days

Segregation in the USA 
A Dallas shooter and JFK 
A nation divided by Vietnam 
Holy wars in the promised land 
Martin Luther in Memphis, Bobby in LA  
Two more great Americans fall  
Maybe the good old days  
Weren't so good after all  

I graduated from high school in '67
Like Dylan, I never looked back
Long hair was dangerous on a boy back then
You could get killed just looking like that
On the streets of LA, I learned how to survive
With the bikers, the drugs and the guns
Some of my friends never got out alive
I was one of the lucky ones
In the good old days

Summer of love in Monterey  
Jimi and Janice will soon fade away  
Cops busting heads on the sunset strip 
Manson on acid, another bad trip 
Protest marchers out in the streets  
Ain't gonna come when Uncle Sam calls
I guess the good old days
Weren't so good after all 

Things aren't always what they seem
The truth lies somewhere in between
The fairy tales and the broken dreams

Bombs in Belfast, the IRA  
The games in Munich just blown away  
Imagine is all that we have left  
In the shadow of John Lennon's death  
I saw our innocence going up in smoke  
As we watched the towers fall  
I see the good old days
Weren't so good after all 
Yeah, the good old days
Weren't so good after all"