Viridian City song

This banger of a track was released on the 2.B.A Master cd collection. It's upbeat, intense, and unmistakably 90s. Perhaps too upbeat - isn't the road to Viridian City extremely short?

Some fans say it's the road to the Pokemon league, which you must access through Viridian City, or coming back to fight the Gym Leader. What do the lyrics actually suggest?

What is the song about? Is it about heading out the first time from pallet town to Viridian city, or coming back to face the gym? Which road to Viridian City are we on?

We've built a team and we've been
training all day long
We're on the road and getting strong
Getting strong, getting strong

This line implies that you already have a team, so you don’t just have your starter with you.

Now here's the plan:
We're gonna head down to the forest
Time to collect some Pokémon
Gotta catch 'em all, gotta catch 'em all

This says they’re heading to the forest. Given the topic of the song, this is presumably Viridian forest. But the Pokémon there are relatively weak - why catch those if we're coming back to face the gym leader or the league? The repetition of 'gotta catch em all' suggests the purpose may be to fill the Pokedex as opposed to team-building.

Meet my friends along the way (I'm on the road)
We're on the road to Viridian City
I got a badge and the power to play

We already have friends, so unless we had buddies in Pallet town, these are new friends. We also have one badge, meaning we must have beat a gym, presumably Pewter.

I left my home and now I see a new horizon
But one day I'll come back to Pallet Town (I'm coming back, coming back)

The narrator reminisces on home. It’s not clear if he left recently or if this is something that happened a long time ago.

The most parsimonious explanation is that the narrator beat Pewter but wants to catch some Pokémon in the forest. This is probably for Pokedex completion, though there may be some team-building involved. As such, the road to Viridian City is probably Route 2.

The out of universe explanation is that the guys who wrote this song knew little about the series and didn’t think through the world. The upbeat energy of this song would make more sense if we were going to Viridian City for the first time, or heading back after a long time, but alas, the lyrics don't suggest either one.