You Can't Be 20: Old-Person Songs by Young People

Different thing, but I've always loved that Bob Seger released an album called Back in '72 in January 1973.

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.

adele "when we were young"

First thing I remember
Was asking Papa, "Why?"
For there were many things I didn't know
And Daddy always smiled
Took me by the hand
Saying, "Someday you'll understand"

Well, I'm here to tell you now
each and every mother's son
You better learn it fast, you better learn it young
'Cause someday never comes

John Fogerty, age 28

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").

MGMT: "Kids" (written in college, IIRC)

Pulp: "Help The Aged" (although Cocker was in his mid-30s when he wrote it)

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.

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?

i feel like songs in this category must get quoted a lot in high school yearbooks.

^^Speaking of..."Truckin'"!

(xpost) I quoted "Cortez the Killer" in mine, and that kind of fits.

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.

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.

I always thought he was at least in his 50’s

I’m not sure what timeframe Morrissey had in mind when we wrote, aged 25 or so, about fans moving on from the songs that made them them laugh and cry, but Rubber Ring always struck me as far-sighted.

Lukas Graham "7 Years"

The Beach Boys "'Til I Die", by 27 year old Brian Wilson

The Cure fits this thread. Robert Smith was 22...

Pretty sure he was 18 when he wrote "I want to be old":

I want false teeth
And not be able to chew
I want to be senile
A centenarian fool

I want to have lots of wrinkles
Want my hearing to go

(xpost) Wilson was 24 when he wrote "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times"--I don't think he mentions age specifically, but definitely fits the old-before-your-time mood spiritually/emotionally.

maybe gram parsons, "return of the grievous angel"? i guess it depends on how you interpret "Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down", but he was still in his early 20s when he wrote that. need factchecking on how many roads GP went down down down before dying

While you're at it, we want to know precisely how many faces were seen, and subsequently rocked by, Jon Bon Jovi.

Another one Robert Smith wrote when he was 24 or 25 is "Sinking".

I am slowing down
As the years go by
I am sinking

maybe gram parsons, "return of the grievous angel"? i guess it depends on how you interpret "Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down", but he was still in his early 20s when he wrote that. need factchecking on how many roads GP went down down down before dying

Not sure he wrote the lyrics for that song?

oh shoot, is that right? i really don't much at all about his songwriting practices, partners/collaborators, etc, so i'm sure you're right

don't ^know^ much at all

"Wish that I knew what I know now / when I was younger" - Faces, all 27-28 at the time

That kind of thinking sets in pretty young in a lot of people, doesn't it? I remember regretting the decisions of my school and college years quite soon afterwards.

tbh quite a lot of stuff in this thread sounds like the words of youth.

I can't remember the band, but I friend saw an early 90s reunion of a first gen hardcore band where the thirtysomething singer hobbled his way on stage with a walker. And when I started my own thirtysomething punk band in the wake of 9/11, we certainly felt oooooold. Double Negative had the right idea to just ignore that shit and rip.

Rush - I Think I'm Going Bald and Lakeside Park, both written by Neil Peart in his early 20s.

I recall someone saying this about a song by Throwing Muses from the first album because they were only 16 or something, don't remember which song but all that album is stunning

Ian Anderson, 29 y.o. when Jethro Tull released to album Too Old to Rock & Roll, Too Young to Die

The Tull album is explicitly about the character of Ray Lomas, aging rocker (in the mods vs. rockers sense).

I wonder if there's a distinction between songs where:
- young people feel nostalgic for their childhood (which, for them, is not actually that long before)
- young people empathize with or imagine being "actually" old people

I've also read that much of the Disintegration album was written in response to turning 30.

― Ex Slacker, Monday, September 27, 2021 7:08 PM

and bloodflowers upon turning 40. he was seemingly born with bittersweet nostalgia hardwired into his heart.

i think roddy frame from aztec camera and archy marshall from king krule both seem worth a mention here. i can't think of any songs specifically mentioning age because they're both overbearing blowhard poetic types -the type which i can't seem to get enough of- but things like "knife" (the song) and "rock bottom" feel relevant.

- young people feel nostalgic for their childhood (which, for them, is not actually that long before)
- young people empathize with or imagine being "actually" old people

The first few songs I listed are a mix of the two, so--without really thinking about it--I guess I had both meanings in mind.

"Time and time again see I be thinking about that future" - Andre 3000, 19, on the opening line of Outkast's debut album.

Balcony Beach by Latyrx. Lyrics Born was 25 when rapping about how his hair is falling out and new information can be a challenge for him to comprehend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfX62bK1Ufc

The Cure song "I Want to Be Old" is definitely presented as irony.

Some of these sound like a singer-songwriter trying to inhabit a persona ("Angel from Montgomery"), or empathize with the old (like "Hello in There").

I think the spirit of the original post might be "sounding old before your time."

Another category ("Darling Be Home Soon") might be "people who think they're old but really aren't."

"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" was recorded by Blind Willie Johnson at the age of 30, but he sounds at least 130

Snail Mail has this vibe, but strong.

Balcony Beach by Latyrx. Lyrics Born was 25 when rapping about how his hair is falling out and new information can be a challenge for him to comprehend.

This just came up on a playlist and I immediately thought of this thread. Came here to post this. Great song.

"The Circle Game" ("We're captive on the carousel of time"--Joni Mitchell, 24

came here to post this one, and it's in clemenza's OP! one tiny amendment: although her version came out on 1970's Ladies of the Canyon, she was performing it as early as 1966, at age 22. the 1970 recording is lovely, and a great capper to the album, but it almost makes more sense as a wistful mid-60s folkie meditation on childhood and growing up, than as a statement on countercultural coming-of-age. that is, as far as micro-genres of this type of lyric are concerned, i'd slot it alongside "Puff, the Magic Dragon," which Peter Yarrow seems to have written/adapted while a college student in the late 50s.

she was performing it as early as 1966

...and she wrote it as a reply to "Sugar Mountain" (which gave this thread its title) before either had been recorded.
I wonder if she saw a certain extra nostalgia in recording the song four years after it was written; I've read interviews where she has been dismissive of the lyrics compared to what she saw as more sophisticated later work.

Joni OTM. Paul Simon also tends to dismiss early work as juvenilia. I love both artists inordinately but am not eager to hear "Circle Game" or "Dangling Conversation" again any time soon.

Paul Simon did that early on the sleeve notes of his "Songbook" album

I see Richard Thompson has been mentioned upthread - excellent choice. Meet on the Ledge also fits, and was written when he was just 19. Interesting how a fair few artists mentioned in this thread are folk singers - maybe knoweldge of all those centuries-old songs put their own mortality in perspective.

Recently discovered this one on an Oldies show: "The Old Crowd" sung by the then-17 year-old Lesley Gore (not sure who wrote it)

[Intro]
Sometimes I get to thinkin' 'bout days gone by
And I start cryin' every time
What I wouldn't give if I could just relive
One day with those old friends of mine

[Verse 1]
No one ever planned it, but every day at four
We would get together at the corner candy store
We would just ignore the sign, "No dancing allowed"
Oh wo yeah, how I miss the old crowd

[Verse 2]
Sally was the funny one, Sue wore the hippest clothes
Eddie was the wise guy, was always one of those
Johnny used to sing off-key, but boy he was loud
Oh woah yeah, how I miss the old crowd

[Bridge]
Well now, it is funny when high school are through
Friendships always come to an end
Everybody tells you they'll keep in touch, yeah
But you don't see them again

[Verse 3]
Oh no, It's not that I'm unhappy; I know I still have you
But I still think about those good times we knew
We were so carefree, our hearts were on cloud
Oh woah yeah, I miss the old crowd

[Outro]
Oh, how I miss the old crowd
Yeah, how I miss the old crowd

I'm 26 and would greatly enjoy more songs by youngsters about how their lives have been relatively, disappointingly static for about fifteen years or so

Self-XP Wiki says "The Old Crowd" was written by Goffin/King! Which totally makes sense because it really feels like the musings of a married with children couple in their early 20s.