{"id":4900,"date":"2026-08-17T12:30:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T16:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.songfacts.com\/articles\/?p=4900"},"modified":"2026-08-17T12:30:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T16:30:28","slug":"the-fading-youth-in-the-boys-of-summer-by-don-henley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.songfacts.com\/articles\/the-fading-youth-in-the-boys-of-summer-by-don-henley\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fading Youth in \u201cThe Boys Of Summer\u201d by Don Henley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Few songs capture the end of summer like “The Boys Of Summer.”<\/a> With lyrics written by Henley and music by Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, who originally offered it to Petty, the song was released in 1984 as the lead single from Henley’s second album, Building The Perfect Beast<\/em>. It’s become one of Henley’s most famous solo hits, and to this day, he considers it to be one of his best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some have attributed the song’s title to a book of the same name about baseball, Henley has said he’d never heard of the book and instead took the title from the poem “I See the Boys Of Summer” by Dylan Thomas, which opens with, “I see the boys of summer in their ruin<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Metaphor in “The Boys Of Summer”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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