I'm sad as I write this post because I consider Green Day to be an good band overall. This Song, though... it puts me to sleep. It sounds just like another song they made a few years ago called Restless Heart Syndrome. It is songs like this that just make me sad. Let's begin the breakdown of the lyrics.

Life after youth
Faded in twilight
The dawn of a criminal in bloom
First love
First forgiveness
We were delinquents
Freaks of a faded memory

The song doesn't start out so bad. At this point I kind of enjoy the melody in a way. This part sounds almost completely different than Restless Heart Syndrome... at least until you get to the chorus:

Outlaws
When we were forever young
When we were outlaws
We're outlaws of redemption, baby
Hooligans
We destroyed suburbia
When we were outlaws
Outlaws of forever

The only lyric that stands out to me is We destroyed suburbia. That's because it is most likely a reference to another one of Green Day's songs called Jesus of Suburbia. That song is fantastic, and is listed in my Songs That Don't Suck page of this blog.
The melody of the chorus for Outlaws is quite boring. It is very slow and leaves me thinking "Get to the point already! I get you're an outlaw, you said it in the title!"

Scars, broken hearts
Breaking in cars
Running in the light of the moon
Lost souls
Bottle rockets
All that we wanted
It's for our life beyond the stars

So now we're are getting to the part where they sing about the past of being outlaws. Yeah, don't you just love breaking hearts and cars, running around in the middle of the night, dying, and bottle rockets? The melody of the verses is still good, but the lyrics are not exactly my favorite. They're not relatable

The chorus is repeated and I'm trying really hard not to close my eyes and take a long, refreshing nap...

I got no supervision
Nothing will change my spirit's place to roam
I plead my innocence
I plead my innocence
But that's my best defense
When you are young

I don't really get the bridge of this song because I fell asleep during the chorus, but I think it's just more about being an outlaw and being in love or something. Not a bad of a melody for it though.

The chorus is repeated again, which I manage to get through because I was refreshed from my previous nap.

I found a knife by the railroad track
You took a train and you can't go back
Forever now, forever now you'll roam

I love this outro so much. The last line forever now is a reference to another song on the same album called Forever Now and that song is really unique and interesting. I think it was a fantastic ending for a really bad song. It's too bad it ended up on this track.

Rating: 5/10