10 Rock Songs That Were Written As An Apology
8. I Was Wrong - Social Distortion
When you live the punk rock lifestyle to a tee, there comes a point when you're going to need to count the miles on your soul. As much as the aesthetic might have all that you want in life, it's not the healthiest place to be in, and things can get hairy all too quickly. You learn more once you've survived as long as Mike Ness has, and I Was Wrong was the moment where he started to really look back.
Framed in the same vein as a song like Story of My Life, Ness is really cleaning house and taking an inventory of all that he's been through in the past. Whereas Story may have been tackling it from the perspective of a kid looking back on his old high school days, this almost feels like a letter written to an old flame, apologizing for the backwards decisions that caused them to break up in the first place.
Since Ness was always a student of the more folksy side of rock and roll, there's almost a country tinged style to this song as well, from the tasteful solos that are sprinkled throughout to the attitude that he sings it with, knowing that he couldn't hear the warnings that were coming from everyone around him. It might be scary trying to make it in the world when you're young, but it takes a true punk to actually own up to all of the pain they've caused in the past.