there regularly and Hanson and Frank Agnew had never been there. "Balboa Fun Zone (Riot at the Beach)" was written by Soto to evoke the wildness of the band's early days, set to a fast punk beat with lyrics chronicling rioting that took place there in April 1987 involving about 700 youths. Soto had not experienced the riot, but based his lyrics on newspaper accounts. He also wrote "Allen Hotel", about a hotel in the band's hometown of Fullerton, California that was populated by drunks and drug addicts. "It's one of those last-chance hotels," he said, "the kind of place you could live in if you didn't have a job and you were scrounging on the street. People I knew that were into drugs and drinking, sure enough some of them started moving in there. It went from being a scary place to a possibility, and that was a scary thought. If I'd kept on doing the things I was doing, I would have been there myself, and so would everyone in the band. Fortunately for us, we didn't let it get that far. We woke up to it." Soto also wrote the album's closing song, "Balboa Fun Zone (It's in Your Touch)", a drastic departure from the Adolescents' earlier work due to it being a folk rock number played on acoustic guitars with lyrical singing about putting a past phase of life behind and looking toward the future. Rikk Agnew's songwriting contributions included "Just Like Before"; written about his longstanding relationship with his girlfriend, it begins with anger over problems in a relationship but then transitions to calm reflection about how the romance endures despite the ongoing friction. Agnew said the lyrics could also apply to the Adolescents' career, since the band broke up in 1981 when the members were young and immature, but now had a chance to grow as they became adults. He commented, "Being a little older, you can realize that when one member is ragging on the others about the music, it has nothing to do with anything personal. Instead of having obstinate egos, we just have strong egos." He also wrote "It's Tattoo Time" about his fondness for tattoos—by 1988, he had over 30 tattoos on his body. The song's bridge features the sound of a tattoo machine; this was a recording of Agnew having his arm tattooed by artist Mark Mahoney. Balboa Fun*Zone