By Barbryn
This topic was first explored way back in September 2006, which must have been a few weeks before I started posting. My first child had yet to be born. She’s away at university now. I guess we’ve all grown a little older.
Getting older starts young. In some early David Bowie, a four-year-old boy imagines what life will be like When I’m Five: “I will jump in puddles, laugh in church and marry my mum.”
Adolescence seems to last a lifetime when you’re going through it. Sage Francis recalls the fears and world-shattering embarrassments of his youth in The Best of Times. No such worries for Chuck Berry, who celebrates being Almost Grown with typical cocksure swagger.
The Long Blondes’ Kate Jackson uses her twentysomething worldly wisdom to advise a 19-year-old to get out of a bad relationship. “I know what it’s like to be your age,” she tells her. You only have to do it Once And Never Again.
At some point, we have to start adulting. “Time's going to be a luxury now in the responsibility empire,” fear Game Theory on the Last Day That We’re Young.
But when’s that day exactly? For some it comes later than others. Skyhooks complain about their friends getting old and doing what they’re told in All My Friends Are Getting Married, while Hank Williams Jr laments the fact that nobody wants to get drunk and high on the town anymore in All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down.
Growing old too soon is tragic, but so is not accepting that The Party’s Over, Party Girl. “The crowd is different, party girl,” says Jill Sobule. “It’s getting harder to keep up with younger party girls.”
Since she hit 35, Amy Rigby has had to pay for her own drinks: I’m Invisible, she complains. “They say that middle age is really the beginning of life… I don't know if I buy that.”
Pulp are the sound of my youth, so it’s reassuring to re-encounter them as fresh as ever on their new album. Grown Ups is a highlight. “Everybody's got to grow up. Everybody? Are you sure?” So many great lines in this one: “I am not ageing, no, I am just ripening / And life’s too short to drink bad wine and that’s frightening.”
Song Bar favourite Paul Kelly is a superb storyteller. This one begins with a boy of five on the beach at the water’s edge, and follows him growing up – sex and love, joy and tragedy – to end back at the beach, carrying his own daughter over the breakers. Getting older takes us into ever Deeper Water.
Kids grow up; so do parents. “Don't want to see my parents go,” sings John Mayer. “One generation's length away / From fighting life out on my own.” You have to accept that you can’t Stop This Train, his dad tells him: “Turn 68, you’ll renegotiate.”
People Get Old, agrees Lori McKenna. “Every line on your face tells a story somebody knows /That's just how it goes / You live long enough and the people you love get old.”
That’s just fine for Lee Hazelwood in My Autumn’s Done Come. He’s here for it: “Hang me a hammock between two big trees / Leave me alone, dammit, let me do as I please.”
“‘I hate it when they say I'm aging gracefully / I fight it every day,’” says the woman in Matraca Berg’s Back When We Were Beautiful. She loves to hold her grandkids, wishes they could’ve known their grandpa. “You know, sometimes for a laugh the two of us would act like we were old… But I guess you had to be there.”
It’s a devastatingly beautiful song, but let’s not end on a sad note. Paul Simon doesn’t mind getting Old, and anyway, you have to put it into perspective: “The human race has walked the earth for 2.7 million / And we estimate the universe at 13-14 billion.” We’re all still young in comparison.
Ageless A-List:
David Bowie – When I’m Five
Sage Francis – The Best of Times
Chuck Berry – Almost Grown
The Long Blondes – Once And Never Again.
Game Theory – Last Day That We’re Young
Skyhooks – All My Friends Are Getting Married
Hank Williams Jr – All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down
Jill Sobule – The Party’s Over, Party Girl
Amy Rigby – I’m Invisible
Pulp – Grown Ups
Paul Kelly – Deeper Water
John Mayer – Stop This Train
Lori McKenna – People Get Old
Lee Hazlewood – My Autumn’s Done Come
Matraca Berg – Back When We Were Beautiful
Paul Simon – Old
Barely A Day Older B-List:
The Ramones – I Don’t Want to Grow Up
Kenickie – In Your Car
Françoise Hardy – Ma Jeunesse Fout Le Camp
Bonny Light Horseman – When I Was Younger
Dar Williams – You’re Aging Well
The Avett Brothers – Backwards with Time
The Modern Lovers – Dignified and Old
Eels – Railroad Man
Idlewild and Edwin Morgan – The Weight of Years
The Kinks – Where Did the Spring Go?
George Jones – I Don’t Need Your Rockin’ Chair
Ella Fitzgerald – September Song
Guru’s Wildcard Picks:
Emily Breeze – Ordinary Life
“One day you’ll find yourself at a friend’s 40th birthday party / Wondering how the days turned into decades / And if anyone still does drugs.”
Frida Hyvönen – Face
Frida’s Dream of Independence album is all about getting older: bereavement, parenthood, divorce, falling in love in your 40s, blended families, the approach of the menopause, raging against her ageing face.
Wolf Alice – Play It Out
“Just watch me build castles in the hourglass sand.” From their very grown-up and rather excellent new album.
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations in response to last week's topic: Fine whines: songs about getting older (but not necessarily getting old). The next topic will launch on Thursday after 1pm UK time.
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