10 Best Songs About Becoming An Adult

Most music revels in its youthful energy. For as many serious topics are present in songs, there are just as many concerned with partying and not worrying about what the future has in store. Then again, we all have to grow up sooner or later.

Ever since the dawn of time, some artists have used their songs as ways to capture the process of moving from one stage of life to the next. Whether it's watching your old town get smaller as the years go by or seeing your relatives slowly fade from memory, there's a certain wisftulness in each of these songs that yearns to go back to the era where nothing really mattered too much.

While some of these songs might look back on their past with disdain or cringe at what they once were, the best of these help acknowledge where they are today and how they can use their experiences as a means to turn into a better person. The long journey of life might not be the most pleasant all the time, but it's one that we have to take regardless, and let's hope we face it with the same amount of confidence as these songwriters have.

Green Day's American Idiot has become a definitive record for the millennial generation. Though the album is a fairly intricate rock opera from front to back, many people forget any of the storylines and focus on how something like the title track or "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" defined their childhood. There may have been a lot of adolescent angst in these songs, but the album's closer is something a lot more mature than most expected out of pop punk.

Set at a chugging rhythm, this song finds our hero Jesus at a crossroads in his life, as he leaves the big city and moves on with his life. He may be back to a life of normality, but he can't help but reminisce about the good times he had with his old muse Whatsername. While he may have remembered her face, he can't recall anything that happened with her, whether it's a repressed memory or just the slow passage of time.

Seeing how this is a pop punk song, it makes sense for Jesus to win back his love, but he instead chooses to live his life as is, affirming that he'll never turn back time. Those years may in the rearview now, but the great times you had are what really endure.