Overall, my first theory is that this song is about a man that as a youth was full of optimism and believed the world was full of possiblities. He was unafraid to go in his own direction and live life the way he thought it was meant to live. Then somewhere in the transition into adulthood he lost sight of those ideals and who he was and didn't realizes it until years later. At the end of the song, the man concludes that he is deep down, still that young man he once was "running against the wind."

The first verse is about him when he was young. It shows us the type of person he was by telling us about one of his first loves. When you are young and in love you believe that it will last forever such as stated in the lyrics "And I remember what she said to me/How she swore that it never would end." Seger also uses imagery to describe the intesity of their relationship and how full of passion it was by comparing it to "a wildfire out of control," and finally tells us that this "wildfire" burns itself out in the end. Seger also emphasises how optimistic he was by using lyrics such as "the mountains that we moved" which also show how much power love seemed to have to him back then and how he thought nothing was impossible.

The chorus "running against the wind" references the fact that he was unafraid to live the life he wanted. The phrase "running against the wind" is also a metaphor for freedom since wind is something that seems free to do as it pleases.

The next verse takes place in the present. It is where the man realizes that he's forgotten who he is and realizes that he had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the road to adulthood. He looks back at who he was and saw where he left his old ideals behind. By the end of the song the sings "I'm older now and still running/Against the wind" which implies that he has realized that deep down he is still the same man he was years ago.