We were sitting 'round a fire, just me and my two boys.
I was shuffling through some classics I thought they might enjoy,
The ones I cut my teeth on, circa 1994,
When life was but a song and I was still figuring out the chords:
"Here’s a Quarter", "Chattahoochee", "Killin’ Time" and "Rodeo".
I said, "This was how our country sounded, about 20 years ago.
But there ain’t much old school in the new wave.
There ain’t much back then around these days.
Nothing suits me like the old hats
And nothing moves me like the throwbacks.
The throwbacks."
I said "Those true and friendly voices, those familiar words,
Hit my heart and make it fonder of back then and how things were,
When the outskirts of Atlanta seemed another world away
And the neighborhood we’re living in was just a field of hay,
Before the country turned to suburb and slow went out of style.
Boys, when I was growing up here we had gravel roads for miles.
But there ain’t much old school in the new wave.
There ain’t much back then around these days.
Nothing suits me like the old hats
And nothing moves me like the throwbacks.
The throwbacks."
Now my kids know the words to the songs I loved back then.
Lord, I pray they’ll keep on playing ‘em over and over and over,
Over and over again.
We need some old school in the new wave.
We need some back then, now and always.
Oh it might sound a little old hat,
But I say, "Long live the throwbacks.
The throwbacks."