Times Of My Life

Album: Lost Americana (2026)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "Times of My Life" arrives like a postcard written long after a breakup, creased at the edges and strangely calm. It's a melancholic ballad about letting go without theatrics, originally written by MGK with Travis Barker and Jacob Kasher around 2018.
  • The premise is disarmingly simple. MGK sings that he hopes his ex is doing well while quietly admitting that, for all the damage and dysfunction, the relationship still represented the "best times" of his life. It's closer in spirit to the introspective yearning of "Invincible" than the chaos of "Bloody Valentine." The anger has burned itself out; what's left is smoke and memory.
  • "Times of My Life" was the first song MGK wrote with Travis Barker, a couple of years before they accidentally-on-purpose reinvented pop-punk together on the album Tickets to My Downfall.
  • MGK first mentioned the track publicly in 2019 on ALT 92.3 Radio, when he said it reminded him of the Oasis song "Wonderwall." He intended it to be the closing track of his 2020 Tickets To My Downfall album but couldn't get authorization to publish the song from Tom Petty's estate, due to the similarity of the hook to an unnamed song of Petty's.
  • For years, the song existed only as a low-quality leak. It became a holy grail track, frequently requested by fans during livestreams and Q&As. On December 23, 2022, a V5.2 demo leaked online, cementing its status as MGK's most famous unreleased song. By this point, it had outlived entire relationships and album cycles. Speculation swirled as to why it remained unreleased for so long, with most fingers pointing toward the sample clearance issue.
  • MGK eventually released the song to start 2026, acknowledging its status as a fan favorite. In social media posts accompanying the release, he noted that while he wrote the words eight years previously, they "mean something different to me now."
  • The song's writing predates MGK's relationship with Megan Fox, so outlets and fan accounts caution that it is not about her. While fans have linked it to various girls he dated in that era, such as Sommer Ray and Chantel Jeffries, there's no confirmation from MGK or official sources who, if anybody, was the inspiration.
  • You may occasionally see "Times of My Life" labeled online as a collaboration with Juice WRLD, often under the alternate title "Best Times of My Life." These are fan-made mashups. The official version is a solo MGK vocal, with production by Travis Barker; no features, no ghosts in the machine.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Corey Hart

Corey HartSongwriter Interviews

The Canadian superstar talks about his sudden rise to fame, and tells the stories behind his hits "Sunglasses At Night," "Boy In The Box" and "Never Surrender."

In The Cards

In The CardsSong Writing

Songwriters have used cards and card games to make sense of heartache, togetherness, and even Gonorrhea.

Grunge Bands Quiz

Grunge Bands QuizMusic Quiz

If the name Citizen Dick means anything to you, there's a chance you'll get some of these right.

Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & PalmerSongwriter Interviews

Greg talks about writing songs of "universal truth" for King Crimson and ELP, and tells us about his most memorable stage moment (it involves fireworks).

Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike + The Mechanics)

Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike + The Mechanics)Songwriter Interviews

Mike Rutherford talks about the "Silent Running" storyline and "Land Of Confusion" in the age of Trump.

Rock Revenge Songs

Rock Revenge SongsMusic Quiz

John Lennon, Paul Simon and Lynyrd Skynyrd are some of the artists who have written revenge songs. Do you know who they wrote them about?