'But I remember, when we were young..." - 21-year-old Ian Curtis
― Zelda Zonk, Monday, 27 September 2021 16:32 (two years ago) link
I'm wondering if this tendency (among boomers) was a sort of second-guessing of "never trust anyone over 30," or an attempt to forestall the criticism?
Could be. Most all of the songs I named date to the mid-late '60s; I'm guessing there was just so much happening so fast, a lot of these people felt prematurely old.
Dylan, as always, goes his own way: "I was so much older then..."
― clemenza, Monday, 27 September 2021 16:34 (two years ago) link
suspect the source of this tendency in the 60s was more to do with the singer/songwriters imitating 20s/30s/40s blues musicians, who also wrote old-person songs when in their twenties.
― edited to reflect developments which occurred (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, 27 September 2021 16:41 (two years ago) link
"Both Sides Now" reads to me as an older person's song, but it was released when Joni Mitchell was 25.
― mike t-diva, Monday, 27 September 2021 17:09 (two years ago) link
"Lather" by Jefferson Airplane, "Where Did My Spring Go?" by the Kinks, "Pushing Thirty" by Peter Hammill, "Remember a Day" (and maybe "See Saw") by Pink Floyd, all by writers in their 20s; but the Hammill song at least is not nostalgic but defiant about aging, so maybe not thematically in the same area?
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 27 September 2021 17:21 (two years ago) link
Katie Melua's "The Closest Thing to Crazy" used to make me roll my eyes a lot:
"This is the closest thing to crazyI have ever beenFeeling twenty-two, acting seventeen"
but today I learned it's actually a Mike Batt song lol ffs
― look on my guacs, ye mighty, and dis pear (Noodle Vague), Monday, 27 September 2021 17:32 (two years ago) link
kanye: "we wasn't supposed to make it past 25, joke's on you we're still alive"
― grove street (party) direction (voodoo chili), Monday, 27 September 2021 17:44 (two years ago) link
Jacques Brel wrote “Le Moribond” (source of “Seasons in the Sun”) when he was 31 or 32.
― Josefa, Monday, 27 September 2021 17:48 (two years ago) link
I think he wrote quite a few old geezer songs but they're character songs so I'm not sure they count?
― Are You Still in Love With Me, Klas-Göran? (Tom D.), Monday, 27 September 2021 17:54 (two years ago) link
Mostly character songs tbf.
― Are You Still in Love With Me, Klas-Göran? (Tom D.), Monday, 27 September 2021 17:56 (two years ago) link
Fair. Hard to draw that line sometimes though.
― Josefa, Monday, 27 September 2021 17:57 (two years ago) link
I mean you’re probably right that Jacques Brel didn’t believe he was dying
― Josefa, Monday, 27 September 2021 17:58 (two years ago) link
this whole thing kinda reminds me of those Twitter threads of people in the 50's and 60's who looked like old men in their early thirties, people just seemed to age faster back then
― frogbs, Monday, 27 September 2021 18:30 (two years ago) link
They did, they were mostly dead before they were 70.
― Are You Still in Love With Me, Klas-Göran? (Tom D.), Monday, 27 September 2021 18:32 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I'd count a song where someone's in character as something separate. On a similar note, "Reflections" as a song certainly fits, but having been written by someone other than the singer, that, in my mind, is separate too.
I mentioned "Both Sides Now" too as a possibility: not specifically about feeling old, but it has an old-person's elegiac voice.
― clemenza, Monday, 27 September 2021 19:45 (two years ago) link
All songs are written in character to some degree but that's a whole other discussion
― Josefa, Monday, 27 September 2021 20:02 (two years ago) link
"Memories of a Rock n' Rolla" by Traffic and "Old Wild Men" by 10cc, both from the point of view of aging musicians.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 27 September 2021 20:26 (two years ago) link
"What's Up" by 4 Non Blondes
25 years and my life is stillTryin' to get up that great big hill of hopeFor a destination
"Hold On" by Alabama Shakes
Bless my heartBless my soulDidn't think I'd make it to 22 years old
Simon & Garfunkel "Old Friends."
Can you imagine usYears from todaySharing a park bench quietly?How terribly strangeTo be seventy
And of course "When I'm Sixty-Four"
― Extinct Namibian shrub genus: Var. (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 27 September 2021 20:48 (two years ago) link
John Prine "Hello in There" and "Angel from Montgomery" both from the perspective of explicitly elderly folk.
They're both great songs, but I always found parts of the former a little awkwardly presumptuous in their pity
"Old people just grow lonesome, waiting for someone to say, 'hello in there'"
"So if you're walking down the street sometimeAnd spot some hollow ancient eyesPlease don't just pass 'em by and stareAs if you didn't care, say, 'Hello in there, hello'"
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, 27 September 2021 20:55 (two years ago) link
(he was 25 when the album came out)
Kind of interesting that R.E.M. covered "Hello in There," and also wrote "Try Not to Breathe" (a "character song" from the perspective of an elderly person).
― juristic person (morrisp), Monday, 27 September 2021 20:57 (two years ago) link
michael stipe definitely an old soul
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, 27 September 2021 20:58 (two years ago) link
Also some overlap there w/scene-mates 10,000 Maniacs – Natalie Merchant was obv very interested in older people, personal histories from the early 20th Century, etc. The "Trouble Me" video even features her helping out an elderly lady, IIRC
― juristic person (morrisp), Monday, 27 September 2021 21:01 (two years ago) link
This one's not about the lyrics, but about the way it's sung: the guy who sings "The Letter" sounds about 30 years older than the guy who sings "September Gurls"
― Lee626, Monday, 27 September 2021 21:14 (two years ago) link
Not that hearing aids are necessarily an olds thing, but Morrissey was sporting one from the early Smiths days, for many reasons I am sure but none to do with actual hearing loss.
― henry s, Monday, 27 September 2021 21:15 (two years ago) link
The reason was Johnny Ray.
― Are You Still in Love With Me, Klas-Göran? (Tom D.), Monday, 27 September 2021 21:17 (two years ago) link
xp I see what you mean about those those John Prine lines, but I'm ok with them because they're written from the pov of a specific person who's lonely in old age.
I think Springsteen's Thunder Road also belongs here, for "you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore" and also "I know it's late, we can make it if we run."
― Lily Dale, Monday, 27 September 2021 21:19 (two years ago) link
Springsteen feels a little different to me because so many of the songs have the message/tone that even if you are 18, 20, 25 or whatever, your best days and youthful optimism are already behind you for circumstantial reasons related to your environment, class, means, etc. But Lily Dale you are more of a Springsteen scholar than I!
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, 27 September 2021 21:25 (two years ago) link
I think Springsteen is really good at time-stamping and age-stamping all his songs; you can often tell exactly what age everyone is. But I think Thunder Road captures that feeling of having turned 25 or 26 and suddenly realizing that your youth has an expiration date and starting to feel older than you are.
― Lily Dale, Monday, 27 September 2021 21:28 (two years ago) link
but yeah I agree that Springsteen often has this feeling of "I shouldn't feel this old at this age" which is a little different
― Lily Dale, Monday, 27 September 2021 21:30 (two years ago) link
Feel like John Fogerty must have written one of these.
― Are You Still in Love With Me, Klas-Göran? (Tom D.), Monday, 27 September 2021 21:32 (two years ago) link
xp agree with those thoughts Lily Dale. Another way to put the distinction is that Springsteen is actually convincing about it where some of the examples upthread end up sounding naïve and ironically childish. Like with the Neil Young examples, it's kind of an endearing quirk of Neil's that he always feels like his best days are behind him. Whereas Bruce sells it that for these song characters, their best days actually are behind them
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, 27 September 2021 21:35 (two years ago) link
or yeah that it's a deeper more existential feeling anyway
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, 27 September 2021 21:36 (two years ago) link
Not sure if the Incredible String Band's "Way Back in the 1960s" qualifies. Robin Williamson was 23 when he wrote it but it's set in the future - in fact he says he's 91 in it, which places it around 2034!
― Are You Still in Love With Me, Klas-Göran? (Tom D.), Monday, 27 September 2021 21:39 (two years ago) link
shook ones
― Vapor waif (uptown churl), Monday, 27 September 2021 21:45 (two years ago) link
Bob Dylan is an interesting one; he's sort of ageless when he's in his twenties, but then when he hits his mid-fifties, with Time Out of Mind, he seems to fast-forward to old age and stay there.
― Lily Dale, Monday, 27 September 2021 21:51 (two years ago) link
Different thing, but I've always loved that Bob Seger released an album called Back in '72 in January 1973.
― ... (Eazy), Monday, 27 September 2021 22:23 (two years ago) link
Feel like John Fogerty must have written one of these.I feel like “Lodi” fits, even though there’s no mention of age or aging.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, 27 September 2021 22:54 (two years ago) link
adele "when we were young"
― dyl, Monday, 27 September 2021 23:26 (two years ago) link
First thing I rememberWas asking Papa, "Why?"For there were many things I didn't knowAnd Daddy always smiledTook me by the handSaying, "Someday you'll understand"
Well, I'm here to tell you now each and every mother's sonYou better learn it fast, you better learn it young'Cause someday never comes
John Fogerty, age 28
― ... (Eazy), Monday, 27 September 2021 23:26 (two years ago) link
I missed a better thread title, also from "Sugar Mountain": Leavin' There Too Soon.
Rod Stewart's "Gasoline Alley"--Stewart was 25--may belong. And "Help" is another obvious Beatles example ("When I was younger, so much younger than today").
― clemenza, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 00:41 (two years ago) link
MGMT: "Kids" (written in college, IIRC)
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 00:58 (two years ago) link
Pulp: "Help The Aged" (although Cocker was in his mid-30s when he wrote it)
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 01:04 (two years ago) link
The Cure fits this thread. Robert Smith was 22 when "Primary" came out. "Further we go / And older we grow / The more we know / The less we show"
I've also read that much of the <i>Disintegration</i> album was written in response to turning 30.
― Ex Slacker, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 02:08 (two years ago) link
Would Taylor Swift's "Fifteen" fit in here, in that she's writing (at 18) in the voice of someone old enough to look back on 15 as the distant past?
― Lily Dale, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 02:20 (two years ago) link
i feel like songs in this category must get quoted a lot in high school yearbooks.
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 03:27 (two years ago) link
^^Speaking of..."Truckin'"!
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 03:31 (two years ago) link
(xpost) I quoted "Cortez the Killer" in mine, and that kind of fits.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 03:34 (two years ago) link
Kate Bush wrote “wuthering heights” when she was 18. Overall lyrics, music style and the fact that it’s based on a book from 1847 would have made me think Kate Bush was an old lady if I didn’t know better.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 03:44 (two years ago) link
Jackson C Frank wrote the album “blues run the game” when he was 22 and they don’t sound like the edgy musings of a young adult, he sounds and sings like he’s sincerely as burned out and depressed as idk Johnny Cash in his later years.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 03:54 (two years ago) link
Yeah, but I bet those people are a lot crazier today
― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Monday, 19 February 2024 18:51 (two months ago) link
idk y'all, everyone has a past. does a 30 year old former child star get to feel old? i'd say yeah, myself.
absolute king of the young old men has to be orson welles though, right? not a song per se, but him doing "hearts of age" at 19...
i read a lot of the songs upthread about being "old" as just depression. or trauma. like, having a friend die, that'll make you feel old.
i think sometimes about dylan's "so much older than" and mitchell's "both sides now" - there aren't in fact two sides, but it's easy for me to fall into thinking that way.
this whole thing kinda reminds me of those Twitter threads of people in the 50's and 60's who looked like old men in their early thirties, people just seemed to age faster back then― frogbs
― frogbs
i got a picture of me at age 22 where i look twice that age. i look like i'm about to yell at some kids to tell them to get off my lawn. then i got a picture of me actually _at_ about twice that age, and i look, god, i look at least 60 in that one.
i got no idea how old i look now. i got no idea how old i _am_ now. i mean, i can give you a number. i can give you a couple of numbers. i went to a friend's birthday party a couple months ago. she was turning five. she's looking forward to retiring - she's eligible this year.
Most all of the songs I named date to the mid-late '60s; I'm guessing there was just so much happening so fast, a lot of these people felt prematurely old.― clemenza
― clemenza
that's the thing, right? it gets graded on a curve. if i hang out with people my age, they don't see me as old, but mostly i don't hang out with people my age. the people i hang out with are younger than me _and getting younger_. transfem HRT will knock ten years off your age over the course of two years or so. do things change fast around me? fuck yes, things change fast. when it comes to transition, two years is a generation. i'm more than four years in and i've started aging forward again. candy darling was 29 when she died, "bored by everything. You might say bored to death." how old does she look in that famous picture?
― Kate (rushomancy), Monday, 19 February 2024 21:34 (two months ago) link
I did not know the song "Class of '57" but I am picturing Charlotte as Charlotte from Sex and the City.
Sort of reminds me of my favorite Dylan line, "some are mathematicians, some are carpenters' wives," though I think it works better as a single line than as an entire song.
― Lily Dale, Monday, 19 February 2024 23:27 (two months ago) link
Probably why the Statlers haven’t won a Nobel
― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Monday, 19 February 2024 23:37 (two months ago) link
Marmalade’s “Reflections Of My Life” seems to fit, though like “Heart of Gold” and several other examples, it definitely feels like it swings between old man POV (“all my sorrows/sad tomorrows/take me back/to my old home”) and young man perspective (all the “changing” and “rearranging” the singer is doing of his life). It actually has two singers, with one sounding older than the other. Anyway, neither band member who wrote it was older than 25 at the time.
― gjoon1, Monday, 19 February 2024 23:54 (two months ago) link
the class of what, '09? did the class of '09 have dreams? come to think of it '09 was my 15 year reunion.
i don't know. i don't think i can look at '94 and see a bunch of young people who had big dreams. i mean i had 'em. they were pissant dreams, though.
― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 00:11 (two months ago) link
I wonder if any of the class of 57 had dreams of being Country Music artists, cause that seemed to work out for a few of them
― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 00:56 (two months ago) link
Libba Cotten - "Freight Train" age 11
When I'm dead and in my graveNo more good times here I cravePlace the stones at my head and feetAnd tell them all I've gone to sleep
When I die, Lord bury me deepDown at the end of old Chestnut StreetSo I can hear old Number NineAs she comes rolling by
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 04:19 (two months ago) link
Great revive…I think people in their mid-20s are often more nostalgic for childhood/teen years than older folksR.E.M.’s “Catapult” to thread
― Sony's Sports Walkman Universe (morrisp), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 04:32 (two months ago) link
some are mathematicians, some are carpenters' wivesWhen I first heard Tangled up in Blue around age 16 it struck me as very much what it might feel like to look back at your life at 35, and by 35 I’d realized it was pretty accurate. A song about aging that is pitched very precisely! It captures a twisting path of memories where you can only see so far back and so far ahead.
― bendy, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 04:42 (two months ago) link
Confession: For at least 30 years, I have harbored a secret curiosity about how many mathematicians are also carpenter's wives.
Like, it's perfectly plausible to be a mathematician who happens to be married to a carpenter. Even if one or the other are DIY hobbyists, as opposed to professional practitioners. I would be totally cool with an amateur mathematician married to a professional carpenter, or vice versa.
― fleetwood macrame (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 05:09 (two months ago) link
Many are confused about how such a life path got started.
― bbq, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 09:02 (two months ago) link
they're an illusion anyway
― corrs unplugged, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 09:38 (two months ago) link
"I think people in their mid-20s are often more nostalgic for childhood/teen years than older folks"
interesting topic and thread. I wonder if Simon Reynolds dealt with this phenomenon in Retromania (which I read when it came out but that was some time ago).
― giraffe, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 11:57 (two months ago) link
agreed, great revive.
Tangled Up In Blue seemed vaguely Deep to me as a younger person, never one of my faves but I dug it. at 42, i find it a lovely mix of goofy Dylan shaggy-dog stuff and a near-magic encapsulation of this sense of having a personal Past. i bet it works whether you've moved around a lot, stayed in one place, become a carpenter's wife, whatever.
Still Crazy has less incident and it's not nearly the same kind of a Rorschach blot, but is so beautifully polished, especially the first verse. it gets at something.
― not the one who's tryin' to dub your anime (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 12:04 (two months ago) link
Not quite the same thing, but I had always assumed Jimmy Buffett's "A Pirate Looks at Forty" was at least semi-autobiographical, but it turns out he recorded it age 27.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 15:24 (two months ago) link
Billy Stayhorn was 21 when he wrote Lush Life. It was a self fulfilling prophecy because he did become an alcoholic. It has the most depressing, world weary lyrics of any jazz standard i can think of and it shocked me when i learned how old he was when writing it.
― bbq, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 22:01 (two months ago) link
otm
― corrs unplugged, Wednesday, 21 February 2024 08:40 (two months ago) link
I love "Tangled Up in Blue," and in the regular world, Dylan being in his early 30s at the time would still count as young; in a pop music context, less so. Like another song I thought of and decided it was something different: Madonna's "This Used to Be My Playground" (she was 34).
― clemenza, Wednesday, 21 February 2024 16:27 (two months ago) link
I'm going to posit that Madonna had been through a few things by the time she was 34.
― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 16:31 (two months ago) link
She was tangled up in true blue.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 21 February 2024 16:33 (two months ago) link
Lol clemenza
― alpaca lips now (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 16:46 (two months ago) link
I was just listening to Dion and the Belmonts singing “September Song” from 1960’s Wish Upon a Star album and thinking they sound much too young to sing those lyrics. But my benchmark of an appropriately grizzled performance is Willie Nelson’s 1978 recording and he was only 45 when that came out, which now seems a bit young for that death-haunted song.
― o. nate, Wednesday, 21 February 2024 16:55 (two months ago) link
Willie Nelson is an interesting case. He was already old when most us were born, and he is apparently immortal.
When he was relatively young, and wrote "Crazy," dinosaurs still roamed the plains. It's a bit weird to see pictures of young Willie, because his brand and image have solidified so much into the one we know.
― alpaca lips now (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 17:05 (two months ago) link