Even children get older, now I’m getting older too

Posted on by brucehhackett

Let’s start this one with a little humor.

You know you’re getting old when: It takes two tries to get up off the couch; your children start looking middle-aged; you hear “snap, crackle, pop” at the breakfast table, but you’re not eating cereal; the only thing getting hard is your arteries.

They say the only two sure things in life are death and taxes. I would add one: Before we die, we get old.

Last week, I celebrated my 70th birthday. Some of my friends who watched me party pretty hard as a young man doubted I’d make it to 40, let alone 70, but, well, here I am. I like to think I’ve acquired some wisdom over the years, and I know better than to attempt some of the more taxing physical chores I used to do with gusto. I still enjoy listening to rock and roll — the classic old stuff as well as newer offerings — but maybe I don’t always crank it up quite as loud as I once did.

Rock and pop music is, by and large, a young person’s game, but quite a few “vintage” artists now in their 70s and 80s are still writing and recording new material and even performing. Just within the past nine months, I’ve seen shows by the likes of Alan Parsons (76), Little Feat’s Bill Payne (76), Graham Nash (83) and ELO’s Jeff Lynne (77), with James Taylor (77) on tap. Through the years, many artists have written songs about getting old, and I’ve collected 15 of them here for you to listen to and appreciate.

As my younger daughter once said to me, “You’re not old, Dad. You’re older.”

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“Grow Old With Me,” John Lennon, 1984

Lennon went on hiatus from the music business in 1975 when his son Sean was born, and he chose to devote a few years to building and strengthening his family bonds with his wife Yoko Ono and their son. He continued writing songs and making rough, homemade demos of them, some of which were officially recorded and released in 1980 on “Double Fantasy” and, posthumously, on “Milk and Honey” in 1984. A few of the “Milk and Honey” tracks were never properly polished in a studio but released as demos anyway, the best being “Grow Old With Me,” one of the prettiest and most sentimental tunes he ever wrote. Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Ringo Starr and others have since released their own versions, but Lennon’s honest original tugs at my heartstrings: “Grow old along with me, whatever fate decrees, /We will see it through, for our love is true, /God bless our love, God bless our love…”

“Old,” Paul Simon, 2000

Ever since Simon released his understated “You’re the One” album in 2000, I’ve been a big fan of the lighthearted track “Old,” which takes an unorthodox, ultimately cheerful look at getting on in years. He reminds us that time is a strange thing, and that the Earth and God are billions of years old, but by comparison, “we’re NOT old.” It’s been a comforting song for me to listen to every year since, and I like to play it for people when they’re down in the dumps about marking another birthday. Now that Simon is into his 80s, I hope he can enjoy it and be reassured by it: “Down the decades, through the years, /Summer’s gone, my birthday’s here, /And all my friends stand up and cheer, /And say, ‘Man, you’re old, gettin’ old…”

“Done Got Old,” Junior Kimbrough, 1992

Kimbrough was one of the many unsung talents playing blues music in the American South in the ’60s and ’70s who struggled as performers and recording artists for decades before they were eventually recognized for their unique styles and blues originals. A native of the North Mississippi hill country, Kimbrough’s initial recordings failed to reach an audience until he was discovered by more established bluesmen like John Lee Hooker in the late 1980s. Kimbrough’s 1992 LP “All Night Long” became the first of four albums he released before his death in 1988 at age 67. One track from that album, “Done Got Old,” a hard-nosed, autobiographical look at aging, has been covered by Buddy Guy and others: “I can’t look like I used to, I can’t walk like I used to, I can’t love like I used to, /And now things gone changed
when I done got old, /I can’t do the things I used to do, because I’m an old man…”

“Old and In the Way,” Old & In The Way, 1975

Before founding The Grateful Dead in 1966, Jerry Garcia had been in jug bands playing bluegrass on banjo, and he retained his fondness for that genre. In 1973, he became involved with fiddle legend Vassar Clements and a few other like-minded souls in a short-lived but spirited group known as Old & In the Way. They performed a few dozen shows and cut one album of bluegrass standards and originals before disbanding. Guitarist David Grisham wrote their flippant signature song, also called “Old and In the Way,” which helped make the album (released in 1975) one of the best-selling bluegrass albums ever: “Old and in the way, that’s what I heard them say, /They used to heed the words he said, but that was yesterday, /Old and turned to grey, and you will fade away, they’ll never care about you, for you’re old and in the way…”

“Old Man Took,” America, 1974

Dewey Bunnell, one third of the trio of singer-songwriters who comprised the 1970s acoustic rock act America, wrote many of the group’s best-known songs (“A Horse With No Name,” “Sandman,” “Ventura Highway,” “Tin Man”). On their fourth LP, 1974’s “Holiday,” Bunnell was inspired to write a song about an elderly man he knew who had recently passed away. It’s a moving piece that uses major seventh guitar chords, like so many other America tunes, to complement the heart-rending words: “For the last time, I watched Old Man Took bait his hook, and then throw his line, pick up his wine, /He’s a friend of mine, known him all my life, and his wife, /’Neath the swayin’ pine and the clingin’ vine, /Just before he left, he said, ‘Now, young man, take good care, don’t let the bugs bite…”

“Old Man,” Randy Newman, 1972

Newman’s satirical songwriting quickly became widely praised and covered by others (Three Dog Night made a hit of his amusing “Mama Told Me Not to Come” in 1970). His gruff, uncultured voice hurt his own LPs, in my opinion, but they still sold well. His third album, 1972’s “Sail Away,” includes the suggestive “You Can Leave Your Hat On” (a future Joe Cocker hit) and the infamous “Burn On,” a scathing take on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River catching fire in 1969. I’ve always admired “Old Man,” Newman’s gently mournful study of old age, which Art Garfunkel covered on his solo debut the following year: “You must remember me, old man, I know that you can if you try, /So just open up your eyes, old man, /look who’s come to say goodbye…”

“Hello In There,” John Prine, 1971

Prine wrote songs in a natural, plain-spoken style, sometimes with humor, sometimes with insightfulness. Even when he was only 22, he came up with unassuming yet profound lyrics to describe the highs and lows of the everyman. One of his finest works, in my view, is “Hello In There,” which American Songwriter depicts as “a stark examination of age, enduring love, and time’s merciless hand.” Prine sensitively explores the loneliness of advanced age and the feeling of “being invisible to the world.” You can find the tune on Prine’s self-titled 1971 debut LP, and cover versions by the likes of Bette Midler, Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez and 10,000 Maniacs: “So if you’re walking down the street sometime and spot some hollow ancient eyes, /Please don’t just pass ’em by and stare, as if you didn’t care, /Say, “Hello in there, hello…”

“When I’m Sixty-Four,” The Beatles, 1967

Paul McCartney was only 14 when he wrote this cabaret-style song about aging, inspired by the type of music has father often played on the piano in the family parlor. More than ten years later, McCartney suggested resurrecting it for inclusion on The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album, in part because Paul’s father Jim McCartney had just turned 64 that year. “It was designed to be about a young man singing to his lover about his plans for the two of them to grow old together,” said McCartney years later. “The others teased me about it, calling it ‘granny music,’ but it ended up one of the more popular tracks on the record.” “…I could be handy, mending a fuse when your lights have gone, /You can knit a sweater by the fireside, Sunday mornings go for a ride, /Doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more? /Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty four?…”

“Old and Wise,” Alan Parsons Project, 1982

Parsons was a young sound engineer at EMI Studios in London, and was integrally involved in the production of The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” and Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” two of the most popular albums in rock history. In 1976, he initiated The Alan Parsons Project with singer-songwriter Eric Woolfson, using a broad range of studio musicians and vocalists on their successful ten-album catalog. Their commercial peak came with 1982’s “Eye in the Sky,” which reached #7 on US album charts, and the title song peaked at #3 on the US Top 40. The LP’s final track, featuring former Zombies lead singer Colin Bluestone, is “Old and Wise,” which focuses on the thoughts of someone nearing the end of life: “And someday in the mist of time, when they asked me if I knew you, /I’d smile and say you were a friend of mine, /And the sadness would be lifted from my eyes when I’m old and wise…”

“Growing Older But Not Up,” Jimmy Buffett, 1980

Although his first five LPs netted only one song that reached the Top 40, Buffett put together a solid run of albums in the late ’70s that brought him consistent success on both the US album charts and the singles pop chart (“Margaritaville,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” “Fins”). As times changed in the 1980s, Buffett’s star began to fade; 1981’s “Coconut Telegraph” wasn’t as successful and yielded no singles. But I’d urge you to take another listen to “Growing Older But Not Up,” a whimsical song about the mind staying young as the body ages: “Though my mind is quite flexible, these brittle bones don’t bend, /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…”

“Getting Older Scares Me to Death,” davvn, 2025

A Nashville-based alternative pop duo that calls itself davvn (pronounced dawn) has been making “new nostalgia” since 2021, and they recently released a single called “Getting Older Scares Me to Death.” At first blush, I rolled my eyes like a know-it-all parent who might say, “You’re so young! What do you know about getting old?” But just because they’re in their 20s doesn’t mean they can’t have anxiety about aging. I think the song offers a valid viewpoint for anyone of any age who feels that maybe life is going too fast, or passing them by: “Is this as good as it gets, always just bored and depressed, I’m hanging on by a thread, choking on my own medicine, tattooed with all my regrets, so sick of playing pretend, heartbreaks got me by the neck, getting old scares me to death…”

“Old Friends,” Simon and Garfunkel, 1968

Almost from the very beginning, Paul Simon showed uncommon depth and wisdom in his songwriting, particularly lyrics. It’s pretty impressive that he was only 27 when he came up with “Old Friends” and “Bookends,” two poignant songs about aging that he merged into one track on Simon and Garfunkel’s watershed fourth LP “Bookends” in 1968. Indeed, the first side of that LP includes tunes that explore the various chapters of life, from childhood and young adulthood through disillusionment and divorce to resigned senior citizen: “Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly? How terribly strange to be seventy… Old friends, memory brushes the same years, silently sharing the same fears… /Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph, /Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you…”

“Old Man,” Neil Young, 1972

After his initial burst of fame with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 1967-1970, Young purchased a multi-acre spread of land in Northern California which he named the Broken Arrow Ranch. Said Young, “When I bought the place, there was a couple living on it who were the caretakers, an old gentleman named Louis Avila and his wife Clara. He took me up to this ridge, and there’s this lake up there, and he says, ‘Tell me, how does a young man like you have enough money to buy a place like this?’ And I said, ‘Well, just lucky, Louis, just real lucky.’ And he said, ‘Well, that’s the darnedest thing I ever heard.’ And I wrote ‘Old Man’ for him.” It compares a young man’s life to an old man’s and shows that they essentially have the same needs: “Old man, look at my life, 24 and there’s so much more, live alone in a paradise that makes me think of two… /Old man, take a look at my life, I’m a lot like you…”

“My Back Pages,” Bob Dylan and Friends, 1993

Seeing as how this classic Bob Dylan song was the inspiration for the name of this Hack’s Back Pages blog, I love to include it in my playlists whenever it makes sense to do so. Dylan wrote it back in 1964 for his fourth LP, “Another Side of Bob Dylan,” and its pivotal line — “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now” — was meant to be his way of explaining his shift away from personal and political idealism and what he felt was a too-serious messianic image as “the voice of a restless generation.” The Byrds covered the song in 1967 and made it their final Top 40 hit, and both Marshall Crenshaw and America also recorded versions. In 1992, at a concert in New York honoring Dylan’s 30 years in the business, an all-star group (George Harrison, Roger McGuinn, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty and Dylan himself) performed the song together, and a live album of the show was released the next year.

“I’m My Own Grandpa,” Lonzo and Oscar, 1948

Just for fun, I’m concluding this playlist with a novelty song written by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe in the 1940s about a man who, through an unlikely (but legal) combination of marriages, becomes stepfather to his own stepmother, and by dropping the “step-” modifiers, he becomes his own grandfather. The men had been reading a book of Mark Twain anecdotes which included a paragraph where Twain proved it would be possible for a man to become his own grandfather, and they expanded the notion into a country song. The duo of Lloyd “Lonzo” George and Rollin “Oscar” Sullivan recorded it in 1948, and it not only ended up selling four million copies, it inspired multiple cover versions through the years by Guy Lombardo, Jo Stafford, Homer & Jethro, Ray Stevens, Willie Nelson and Steve Goodman.

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If it’s more than 30 years old, it could be a classic

Posted on by brucehhackett

How do we determine what qualifies as “classic rock”?

For quite a while now — at least as long as the ten years I’ve been writing Hack’s Back Pages — the loose definition I’ve used has been rock/pop songs of the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. Songs that are, 30, 40, 50 years old or longer, basically.

With that in mind, it’s time for a reality check: 1990 was 35 years ago.

That means that songs and albums of the 1990s (at least the first half of the ’90s) should now qualify as “classic rock” because they’re three decades old.

That means they are now valid candidates to be among the songs I like to call “lost classics” — tunes you might recall but have forgotten about, or tunes from albums you knew but were “deep tracks” that flew under your radar at the time.

In the early ’90s, I was a new dad of young daughters, and I had neither the time nor the disposable income to pay as close attention to the music being released. As a longtime record collector, I tried to keep up, but where I once bought an album a week in the ’70s or ’80s, I was instead buying maybe an album a month.

But it’s high time that this blog should acknowledge some of the great songs released in the early ’90s and present them for my readers’ consideration. This week’s post includes a dozen lost classics from albums released in the 1991-1993 period. As always, there’s a Spotify playlist at the end.

I expect some of these will be vaguely or instantly familiar to you, but perhaps most of these will be brand new to you because, like me, you weren’t listening as closely to what the radio was playing at that point. In either case, I reckon you’ll find these songs appealing and worthy of your attention.

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“Weather With You,” Crowded House, 1991

Singer/guitarist/songwriter Neil Finn formed his band Crowded House in Australia in 1986 and had early Top Ten success in the US with two hit singles, “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Something So Strong.” Their popularity continued in the UK and elsewhere but didn’t last in the US. When I bought their greatest hits CD in 1996, I discovered about a dozen of their earlier gems, especially the catchy “Weather With You” from their 1991 LP “Woodface.” Said Finn, “My brother Tim had the line ‘Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you,’ and we got the guitar riff going and wrote the song together. It’s about a guy totally wrapped up in melancholy, but ultimately, the theme of the song is, you are always creating your own weather, making your own environment, always.”

“Stars,” Simply Red, 1991

Mick Hucknall has one of the most appealing voices I’ve ever heard, alternating between sensual and powerful throughout Simply Red’s 13-album catalog. Only the first three LPs performed well on US charts, thanks to their #1 singles “Holding Back the Years” and the remake of “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” but in their native UK, every one of their 13 albums has made the Top Ten. One of their most consistent is 1991’s “Stars,” the title track of which was a big hit elsewhere but managed only #44 here. Critics loved it, calling it “wistfully dreamy” and “charmingly upbeat.” Hucknall wrote it as a love song between two people who are crazy about each other but “unlikely to walk off into the sunset together,” as he put it in a 1995 interview. I find it curious that Simply Red’s engaging music wasn’t embraced more enthusiastically in the US.

“Crazy,” Seal, 1991

I’ve loved this guy from the moment my friend Barney returned from England raving about this startling new vocal talent, and I’ve bought everything he’s ever released since. Critics have compared his vocal control to Marvin Gaye, though Seal’s voice offers more grit in his delivery. His first hit was “Crazy” (no relation to the Patsy Cline classic), which he wrote in 1990 in response to world events at the time. The lyrics preach a simple philosophy: “We’re never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy.” Musically, the track has a keyboard-driven bass/synthesizer groove that flows naturally enough that you find yourself humming along on first listening. It peaked at #7 on US charts and served as an entree to the more conventional “Kiss From a Rose,” a #1 hit for Seal three years later.

“Afternoons and Coffeespoons,” Crash Test Dummies, 1993

One of Canada’s more intriguing rock bands, the Crash Test Dummies found major success in 1993 with their third LP, “God Shuffled His Feet.” The unusual bass/baritone vocals of lead singer Brad Roberts take a little getting used to, but the group’s songs are instantly likable. US audiences were enamored by the unusually titled #4 hit “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm,” but just as strong to me was the fan favorite “Afternoons & Coffeespoons,” a pop/folk rock track inspired by the famous T.S. Eliot poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Roberts said, “It’s a song about being afraid of getting old, which is a reflection of my very neurotic character.” Although it charted well in Canada and a few European countries, it inexplicably stalled at #66 here.

“Dream in Blue,” Los Lobos, 1992

In 1973, David Hidalgo and Louie Pérez were classmates at an East Los Angeles high school and discovered they both played guitar and had similar musical tastes. Pérez recalls, “I went over to his house one day and stayed for about a year, listening to records, playing guitars, and starting to write songs.” By 1980, they formed Los Lobos (translated as The Wolves), and gained momentum warming up for bands like The Clash and The Blasters. Their cover of Ritchie Valens’s hit “La Bamba” went to #1 in 1988, and they’ve maintained a loyal fan base ever since, even though their chart performance doesn’t show it. My friend Lou exposed me to their 1992 LP “Kiko,” which is full of great tunes, particularly “Kiko and the Lavender Moon” and the leadoff track, “Dream in Blue.”

“Say Something,” James, 1993

Hailing from Manchester, England, in the late ’80s, James has been consistently popular there for more than 30 years, but their success in the US has been relatively limited. In 1993, college radio stations latched on to their single “Laid,” the title track to their sixth album, which stalled at #61 on pop charts but reached #3 on Alt Rock listings. The LP leans acoustic, partly because they had just completed a stint as the support act for Neil Young during his “Harvest Moon” tour, and their next songs reflected that. Again, I credit a friend (this time Bob) for turning me on to that album, which has a whole bunch of great songs produced by the great Brian Eno and carried by the strong vocals of Tim Booth. “Say Something” is one of the songs that first caught my attention.

“Hero,” David Crosby, 1993

Probably the least prolific of the songwriters in the CSNY stable, Crosby seemed more focused on quality than quantity, writing some of the more complex, fascinating songs in their repertoire (“Déjà Vu,” “Guinnevere,” “The Lee Shore”). His third solo studio album, 1993’s “Thousand Roads,” got almost no attention, but it’s jam-packed with great tracks, mostly written by other noteworthy composers (Joni Mitchell, Marc Cohn, John Hiatt, Stephen Bishop, Jimmy Webb). Phil Collins collaborated with Crosby to write and produce the soothing tune “Hero,” an underperforming single on which Collins also sang backing vocals and played drums and keyboards. Crosby didn’t record another solo LP until “Croz” in 2014, then churned out four more in seven years before his death in 2023.

“Professional Jealousy,” Van Morrison, 1991

Talk about prolific: This 79-year-old musical dynamo has released 50 LPs between 1968 and 2025, specializing in vibrant Irish soul, folk and ballads. In the US, his albums from the 1970s were his most popular (“Moondance,” “Tupelo Honey,” “Saint Dominic’s Preview”), but he could reliably sell several hundred thousand copies here every time he released something new. In 1991, his first double studio album, “Hymns to the Silence,” managed only a #99 charting, and critics felt it rehashed his most recent predecessors, “Avalon Sunset” and “Enlightenment,” but I think it stands as a solid effort in its own right. “Professional Jealousy,” the leadoff track, “brims with the consistent passion that continues to make Morrison fascinating,” according to Rolling Stone.

“Miss Chatelaine,” k.d. lang, 1992

An admirer of poet e.e. cummings and his fondness for the lower case, Canadian singer k.d. lang came on strong in 1992 with “Ingénue,” a commendable LP of originals that fall more into the cabaret genre than the country music groove she first presented. She has been nominated for Grammys several times, and “Ingenue” won a Juno Award for Best Album, helped along by three well-received singles: “Constant Craving,” “Save Me” and the come-hither bauble “Miss Chatelaine.” The latter song’s popular video depicted lang in an exaggeratedly feminine manner that seemed like a “Lawrence Welk Show” parody because it was such an about-face from her decidedly androgynous appearance most of the time. This is one of those “guilty pleasure” songs for me.

“Jesse,” Joshua Kadison, 1993

This humble guy seemed to come out of nowhere in 1993 with his debut, “Painted Desert Serenade,” a smart collection of introspective story-songs that went platinum on the strength of two hits: “Beautiful In My Eyes,” which became a popular choice at weddings, and “Jessie,” with its lovely piano-based melody that recalls Marc Cohn’s gem “Walking in Memphis.” Critics compared Kadison’s voice to superstars like Billy Joel and Elton John, which is actually pretty accurate. “I was so used to being outside of whatever was going on that I didn’t even think I’d ever get a record deal, much less have my songs played on the radio,” Kadison said in 1996. Although he released four more LPs before withdrawing in 2001, none managed the simple appeal of his first.

“On Every Street,” Dire Straits, 1991

Mark Knopfler is easily one of my Top Five favorite guitarists, with a supple, quicksilver sound that augments his songs and informs his solos, first on six Dire Straits albums and then ten solo records since 1996. “Brothers in Arms,” the group’s multiplatinum international LP, was in everybody’s collection in 1985-86, but truth be told, I’ve always preferred their swan song, 1991’s “On Every Street,” with a dozen exquisitely realized tunes that show uncommon diversity and depth. It went #1 all over the world, and peaked at #12 in US, despite no singles on the pop charts. The track that never fails to grab me is the marvelous title song, about a private eye who’s trying to find an elusive criminal: “There’s gotta be a record of you some place, you gotta be on somebody’s books… /Somewhere your fingerprints remain concrete, and it’s your face I’m looking for on every street…”

“California Here I Come,” Sophie B. Hawkins, 1992

This quirky, talented singer-songwriter from New York City made an impressive debut in 1992 with “Tongues and Tails,” an album full of mostly originals that included the surprise #5 hit, “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover.” A second LP in ’94 did almost as well, but Hawkins had a falling out with her record label over the third album, which soured her on the music business and curtailed her career. Critics praised her “Madonna-meets-Chrissie Hynde voice” on deeper tracks like “California Here I Come,” a compelling tune about the lure of the West Coast: “How come some people got it all, some people got none, /I been banging my head against the writing on the wall, /But now I just wanna have fun, /California, here I come, open up your golden arms, /I had enough of the New York City slums…”

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