These are great, thanks. I had considered Frank Sinatra and Hary Chapin, but I didn’t even think of most of these.
I don’t know if I should open or close the disc with “Older” by They Might Be Giants. It might be too flippant.
I have to second the “Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “It was a Very Good Year.””
Another;
Landslide by Stevie Nicks. The Dixie Chicks covered it fabulisly as well. Either rendition can bring a tear to my eye fast and hard.
I Am My Dad (lyrics), by Electric Bonsai Band
When I Grow Up by Michelle Shocked?
A more cheerful song – * Growing Older But Not Up * by Jimmy Buffet.
I’m growing older but not up
My metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck
Let those winds of time blow over my head
I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead
How could I forget! :smack:
Time by Pink Floyd.
In that vein, there’s “Leader of the Band” (video) by Dan Fogelberg. Another one guaranteed to bring a tiny tear to the eye.
“Grow Old Along with Me”, although it is about a couple growing old. John Lennon wrote it and Mary Chapin Carpenter has a nice version.
Stan Rogers has a other good ones that kind of fit:
45 Years
Down the Road
“Bungalow” and “Frivolous Tonight” by XTC – the first is about the dream of retiring to a cottage by the sea; the second, to a relaxed middle-aged spread and conviviality.
“A Simple Kind of Life” by **No Doubt ** is about how a single woman’s priorities, notions of love and family, and personality can be changing over the years, not necessarily for the better, and how she still has time to decide one way or another (but it’s a very tough choice).
“The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul” by XTC is a masculine take on the same, after the damage was done and the man sits alone in his old age. A grim subject, but wonderfully literate lyrics.
“The Wrong Road Round” by The Go-Betweens – although the song relates to experience rather than aging per se.
And an honorable mention to the entire album Blast of Silence by The Golden Palominos, which opens and closes with the spoken phrase “A little older, a little more confused” – and whose songs are less about aging than life’s meting out hard-won lessons, and our struggle to find some measure of redemption.
Even though there are no words in it, there’s “Saturn- The Bringer of Old Age” from Holst’s Planets Suite.
with help from Robert Browning.
This is the first one I thought of. You must include it.
How old is this friend going to be, by the way?
Tim McGraw: “My Next Thirty Years”
…Oh, my next thirty years, I’m gonna watch my weight
Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late
Drink a little lemonade and not so many beers
Maybe I’ll remember my next thirty years
The story is that the songwriter, Phil Vassar, woke up on his 30th birthday and wrote the song that day.
And The Promise Ring’s reference to the Sinatra tune on Things Just Getting Good. I haven’t listened to it in awhile so the lyrics are sorta sketchy:
Jethro Tull’s Too Old to Rock and Roll
Time Stand Still by Rush
I let my past go too fast
No time to pause –
If I could slow it all down
Like some captain,
Whose ship runs aground –
I can wait until the tide
Comes around
Make each impression
A little bit stronger
Freeze this motion
A little bit longer
The innocence slips away…
Summers going fast –
Nights growing colder
Children growing up –
Old friends growing older
Experience slips away…
“Night Moves,” “Like a Rock,” and “Against the Wind,” by Bob Seger. He probably did a bunch more.
“On Growing Older,” by The Strawbs. The only song I know that uses the word “retrospect.”
Was he in The Beatles?
“I Don’t Want to Grow Up” by Tom Waits (featuring Keith Richards). The song in question kicks in at 0:50.
Paul Simon’s *Old * off of the album You’re the One.
It’s a bouncy little song starting off with Baby Boomer nostalgia (Buddy Holly, Rolling Stones, Russians in space, etc) and ending up with metaphysical mumblings.
Down the decades, every year
Summer leaves and my birthday’s here,
and all my friends stand up and cheer
abd say ‘Man, you are old!’
It’s fun.