Songs about getting older?

Subject: Songs about getting older?
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 11:40 AM

I was recently at a birthday party for someone who had reached the grand old age of 55, and someone else perked up and said, "I think growing old is great -- especially compared to my first 40 years -- does anyone else have anything to say about how wonderful it is to grow old?" This was followed by a grim silence, followed in turn by various references to a bit more wisdom, less concern about small details (or less about the big picture), who are these children masquerading as policemen, etc. It set me to wondering about songs about getting older (or being old), ranging from the sentimental ("WHEN YOU AND I WERE YOUNG, MAGGIE") to the wistful ("September Song"), and half-remembered songs about cracking ice for Grandpa's piles. Actually, now that I think of it, I suspect there is a divide between songs about growing somewhat older (past your 40s), and getting really old (pick your date), when things get really tough. Maybe I'll try two threads, and see if there are any takers. For this one, does anyone have any good songs about getting somewhat older? Yours, Peter

[Many song titles in this thread have been converted to links by a Mudelf.]

Subject: Lyr Add: MY OLD DUTCH
From: Bert
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 12:08 PM

Here's an old Cockney song.

My Old Dutch

Now I've got a gal, she's a regular out and outer
She's a dear old pal and I'll tell you all about her
It's many years since first we met,
Her hair was long and black as jet
It's whiter now but she don't fret, not my old gal

We've been together now for forty years and it don't seem a day too much
for there ain't a lady living in the land that I'd swap for my Dear Old Dutch.
No there ain't a lady living in the land that I'd swap for my Dear Old Dutch.

[A more complete version is posted here.]

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Akiba
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 12:43 PM

Peter,

How about "THE ASH GROVE" (which comes to mind because I posted a variant version to the Guy's Song Circle yesterday)? "BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS" certainly fits the bill. In a darker mood, what about "CARRICKFERGUS" and its sisters and its cousins and its aunts, like the many variants of "The Water Is Wide"?

This isn't a folk song, but what about Chevalier's "I REMEMBER IT WELL" from Gigi? Or, from Carousel, "When The Children Are Asleep" -- ( "We'll think what fun that we had, / And be glad that it all came true; / You'll still hear me say that / The best dream I know is you!")

I'll be 62 in a month, so I can tell you one thing for sure about getting older: it beats ALL HECK out of the alternative! I'll keep thinking about this one, and get back to you. There may be a lot more out there than immediately springs to mind. By the way, do you know why it takes us "alter kochers" so much longer to retrieve things from memory? (Nod to Dick.) Because of the size of the database.

L'Chaim

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 04:47 PM

Dear Bert and Akiba, Good songs, hadn't occurred to me. "When the Children Are Asleep" -- one of my favourites, in spite of the ominous context. Someone mentioned today, "The Second Time Around" -- older but wiser! Yours, Peter

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Bert
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 05:09 PM

Jimmie Rodgers did one about "Daddy dear old Daddy" [DADDY AND HOME] . I'll see if I can find the words for you.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From:
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 05:31 PM

What about John Prine's "HELLO IN THERE"?

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: PattyG
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 10:26 PM

Ever hear of one that was sung by Roberta Sherwood called, "I'm Staying Young".....while everyone around me is growing old..... (from "Take Me Along", I believe.) Kinda nice and pensive.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Shula
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 03:55 AM

Dear Peter,

Since you mention "The Second Time Around" and Akiba has put me in mind of songs from musicals, what about "The Sadder-But-Wiser Girl" from "The Music Man"?

Like the two threads. "Growing Older" truly differs thematically from "Growing Old."

BTW, "When The Children Are Asleep" is a fav. of ours, too. We have a repetoire of responsive duets, -- lots of fun. Think I'll go launch a thread on the subject, -- see what else is out there.

Fine concept, here.

Ta,

Shula

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Shula
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 03:57 AM

Durn! "repertoire" Sorry. (Hope Max gets personal editing capability going before I lose all my self-respect!)

Shula

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 03:14 PM

As I pointed out in another thread on aging, a search for @age or @aging (or, better yet @ag*) got me 99 hits. A reasonable start.

Subject: Lyr Add: A WORLD OF TIME (Bob Clayton)
From: Songster Bob
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 04:16 PM

I searched Digitrad and found that my own "World of Time" hasn't yet been entered, but it's one of my favorite aging songs. I'll try a cut-and-paste of the lyrics here:

A World of Time
(Bob Clayton)

When I was young and in my prime,
It seemed my world was made of time.
Long years have passed, without a doubt,
As I let a world of time go running out.

Chorus:
All the things that I would do,
If I had time to be with you
To make up for the hours and the days
I let a world of time slip away.

When I was young, it seemed to me
There wasn't a thing I couldn't be.
Sad experience lets me know
How you lose your illusions when you grow.

Chorus

I don't know how I could have been so dumb!
I wasted my youth on being young.
As if that were quite enough to be.
They say wisdom comes with age, and is not free.

Chorus

If I had met you in a younger day,
It might have been different; who's to say?
But since I didn't, if you'll care,
A world of time together we can share.

Chorus


Copyright © 1991, Bob Clayton, Silver Spring, MD

The tune is reminiscent of "WHEN YOU AND I WERE YOUNG, MAGGIE" on the chorus, but it's impossible to truly annotate it here. Someday, there'll be a recording of it and a bunch of my other songs. I have a songbook available, but it's not the same as hearing 'em.

Bob Clayton

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Nonie Rider
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 04:39 PM

Wal now, I'm only almost-forty (another couple of weeks), so I'm not in a position to judge the older years, but believe me, I wouldn't take under-thirty again for anything. And as for eighteen--ugh!!! No, I'm looking forward to post-menopause and hoping for a long cronehood.

But songs, now:

Stan Rogers' "Lies," about an aging ranch wife looking in her mirror, is probably the most compassionate song I've heard in my life.

On the rowdier side, filker/folker Michael Longcor's got a wonderful one about "I can't party as hearty as I partied/When I partied at 21." Chorus goes something like:

Well, I've drunk with Jose Cuervo,
Had a dance with Irish Rose;
Went two-out-of-three with old Jack D
And I think he broke my nose.

(And as a last line, after all the drinking memories, he adds in a suggestive voice: "But there's one or two things I do a whole lot better/Than when I was 21!")

And is it CSN&Y or EL&P who did "Wasted on the Way?"

So much time to make up, everywhere you turn,
Time we have wasted on the way,
So much water moving underneath the bridge;
Let the water come and carry us away.

--Nonie

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Bert
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 05:10 PM

What about Tom Paxton's "NOT TONIGHT, MARIE"

Song title converted to link. --JoeClone, 20-Mar-02.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Shula
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 05:22 PM

Dear Peter,

We-e-ellllll now, sonny-boy, y've shore dun set th' woods t' fahre wi' thet'un 'bout gittin' RILLY O'D, s' seein's i' t'aint 's crowded 'roun 'bout t'ese hyar parts, Ah speks Ah'll jes' hatter put mah two sens in this'un, cuz jedgin' bah th' stuff wot's in t'other'un, whar y' puts it's needah yere no' dar!

Obliquely, at least: "My Father Always Promised Us" (That We Would Live In France). "Chanson Des Vieux Amants," mentioned in SAGRO, -- Um Hum! BTW, wonder if it could be old enough for La Piaf?

Naptime,

Emergent Crone, AKA Shula

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Shula
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 03:57 AM

Dear Peter,

See verse three of "EILEEN AROON;" it's in the DT all right, but not @ag*.:

3. Youth must in time decay,
Eileen Aroon.
Beauty must fade away,
Eileen Aroon.
Castles are sacked in war;
Chieftains are scattered far;
Truth is a fixed star,
Eileen Aroon.

Shula

Subject: Lyr Add: GETTING OLDER (Alan Foster)
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 04:56 AM

G'day,
Here's another one:-

GETTING OLDER
(Alan Foster)

My mid-life crisis is setting in
As I try to control my double chin
And iron out my wrinkled skin
And I know I'm getting older.

They told me life begins at fifty
The age when all is neat and nifty
But the look in their eye was sharp and shifty
And they know I'm getting older.

I can run as fast as I ever ran
And to chase young women is my plan
But they know I'm just a harmless old man
'Cause they see I'm getting older.

My memory keeps on getting worse
It's just another little curse
Now what was the subject of this verse?
I must be getting older.

When your hair falls out and your eyesight goes
And the only thing you've got that grows
Is your waistline so it hides your toes
You know you're getting older.

I'll end this rhyme before I ruin it
Before you all start misconstruin' it
But as long as I can keep on doin' it*
I don't mind getting older.

*i.e. getting older.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Shula
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 06:12 AM

Dear Alan,

Good stuff there. Hope you're in the DT.

Shula

P.S. If I asked, very, very sweetly, would you write just one leetle beety ol' verse to sum up, or finish off, as the case may be, the jig for "THE OLD SAILOR"? It might get others going. Thank you most humbly. S.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Justin Kodner
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 09:48 AM

There are so many. I agree about Stan Rogers' "Lies" and Prine's "HELLO IN THERE", and Paxton's "NOT TONIGHT, MARIE", but I'm surprised no one mentioned Steve Goodman's "THE DUTCHMAN". How about "MY GET UP AND GO HAS GOT UP AND WENT", Lee Hayes. Did you know that in his last years, after his legs had to be amputated (diabetes) he used to answer the phone, "Lee Hayes here...more or less"?

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Peter T.
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 09:50 AM

Gee, original songs. Re: Chanson des Vieux Amants, I am reasonably sure that Edith Piaf didn't sing it. It is a Brel tune. There is a somewhat mangled version (though beautifully sung as ever) by Judy Collins on her old Wildflowers album. Yours, Peter P. S. The rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins was once interviewed on the subject of becoming an aging rocker, and at one point (to the female interviewer) he said, "I'm not as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was".

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: TomG
Date: 09 Oct 97 - 03:10 PM

See my message under this same heading also of today's date re "Younger than Spring" and "Once Upon a Time"

Subject: Lyr Add: TIMES AIN'T NOW NOTHING LIKE THEY USED TO
From: Jon W.
Date: 10 Oct 97 - 07:28 PM

Here's a rarely heard blues song, recorded by Richard "Rabbit" Brown in 1927. I like the first three verses best myself but you can pick and choose your favorites.

TIMES AIN'T NOW NOTHING LIKE THEY USED TO BE

Times ain't now nothing like they used to be (2x)
And I'm telling you all the truth, oh take it from me

I done seen better days, but I'm putting up with these (2x)
I would have a much better time but these girls now are so hard to please.

'Cause I was born in the country, she thinks I'm easy to rule (2x)
She try to hitch me to a wagon, she wanna drive me like a mule.

You know I bought the groceries, and I pay the rent (2x)
She try to make me wash her clothes but I got good common sense.

I say if you don't want me, why don't you tell me so (2x)
(?)... here like a man that ain't got nowhere to go.

I've been givin' you sugar for sugar, let you get salt for salt (2x)
And if you can't get along with me, well it's your own fault.

How do you want me to love you, you keep a-treatin' me mean (2x)
You're my daily thought, and my nightly dream

Sometime I think that you too sweet to die (2x)
And another time I think, you oughtta be buried alive.

This is on the album "Blues of the Western States" on Yazoo Records.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Robert Lee
Date: 11 Oct 97 - 02:37 AM

"WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM" is a very beautiful song that was a particular favourite of my grandmother's. But more about contemplating old age than actually about getting older.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 Oct 97 - 12:44 PM

Dear Jon, Don't know anything about "Rabbit Brown", so must get the album -- the lyrics intrigue. Was he a Texan? Yours, Peter

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jon W.
Date: 13 Oct 97 - 03:59 PM

Peter,

"Rabbit" was from New Orleans, rowed a boat on Lake Ponchartrain for tourists, and sang to entertain them I suppose. I think this was his only recording, but not sure. The album has quite a bit of good blues on it, from artists from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana (places west of the Delta). I would recommend it if you can stand Yazoo's faithful reproduction of the sound of well used 78's.

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM
From: PattyG
Date: 13 Oct 97 - 10:13 PM

Oh! "When I Grow Too Old To Dream"!! What a *wonderful* old song!
(To me, this is a funeral song, though:)

WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM
Words, Oscar Hammerstein II; music, Sigmund Romberg; ©1934.
As recorded by Nelson Eddy, 1935.

VERSE: We have been gay,
Going our way.
Life has been beautiful; we have been young.
After you've gone,
Life will go on
Like an old song we have sung.

CHORUS: When I grow too old to dream, I'll have you to remember.
When I grow too old to dream, your love will live in my heart.
So kiss me, my sweet, and so let us part,
And when I grow too old to dream, that kiss will live in my heart.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: The Fenian
Date: 14 Oct 97 - 01:59 PM

How about THE 200-YEAR-OLD ALCOHOLICby Tommy Makem. That's a pretty cool song.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Betsychicago
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 10:23 AM

Minor correction: Steve Goodman was the best known singer of "THE DUTCHMAN," but it was written (and is often performed so movingly that I cry!) by Michael Smith, one of the country's most underrated singer-songwriters.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Deckman
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 10:40 AM

This is a great topic. These days I perform a lot at nursing homes, that way I've got a captive audience.(I just take their walkers away). My favorite is David Mallett's "Light At The End Of The Tunnel." By the way, I'm so old now that it takes me all night to do what I used to do all night! (no charge!) CHEERS, Bob Nelson

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 11:12 AM

If you like the melancholy, try "BAY OF FUNDY" by Gordon Bok.
"..When you run your Easting down, Don't go down to Fundy Bay, She'll wear your time away." and "Dont mind the wind and cold, Just don't like this growing old, Cape Sable's horn blows all night long, Wonder Why,.."

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: jaze
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 11:46 AM

Mary Chapin Carpenter's version of "Grow Old With Me" is beautiful. Wasn't that written by John Lennon?

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: The Shambles
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 02:13 PM

Autumn Gold. To be found in The Mudcat Songbook.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 02:36 PM

I love Shel Silverstein's 'We'll Never Be This Young Again". And of course, 'Time'.

eb

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 03:09 PM

"The Way You Look Tonight", Tom Waits' "Martha", Crash Test Dummies "Afternoons and Coffeespoons" and Mose Allison "Was" (When Is Becomes Was). Not depressing, just lovely.

Subject: Lyr Add: ALL USED UP (Utah Phillips)
From: GUEST,Martin Rich
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 03:27 PM

This one sung by Roy Bailey. Bruce "Utah" Phillips is from Spokane.

ALL USED UP
Utah Phillips
As recorded by Utah Phillips on "The Telling Takes Me Home" (1997)

        G
  I spent my whole life making somebody rich.
    C                                D7
  I busted my ass for that son of a bitch,
           G        D7           C       G
  And he left me to die like a dog in a ditch,
                  D7      G
  And told me I'm all used up.

He used up my labor; he used up my time.
He plundered my body and squandered my mind,
And gave me a pension of handouts and wine,
And told me I'm all used up.

My kids are in hock to a god you call work,
Slaving their lives out for some other jerk,
And my youngest in Frisco just made shipping clerk.
And he don't know I'm all used up.

The young people reaching for power and gold
Don't have respect for anything old.
For pennies, they're bought and for promises sold.
Someday they'll all be used up.

They use up the oil; they use up the trees.
They use up the air and they use up the sea.
Well, how about you, friend, and how about me?
What's left when we're all used up?

I'll finish my life in this crummy hotel.
It's lousy with bugs and, my god, what a smell!
But my plumbing still works and I'm clear as a bell.
Don't tell me I'm all used up.

Outside my window, the world passes by,
Gives me a handout and spits in my eye.
And no one can tell me 'cause no one knows why
I'm living but I'm all used up.

Sometimes in my dreams, I sit by a tree.
My life is a book of how things used to be.
And kids gather round and they listen to me.
And they don't think I'm all used up.

And there's songs and there's laughter and things I can do,
And all that I've learned I can give back to you.
I'd give my last breath just to make it come true.
No, I'm not all used up.

They use up the oil and they use up the trees.
They use up the air and they use up the sea.
Well, how about you, friend, and how about me?
What's left when we're all used up?

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 03:53 PM

Joe Glazer wrote a song that I can't seem to find anywhere just now. Maybe someone can help. The refrain goes:

Too old to work, too old to work,
Too old to work and too young to die,
Who'll take care of you, how'll you get by,
When you're too old to work and you're too young to die.

I think Pete Seeger sings this one and Utah Phillips too.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 04:05 PM

I did one for my Mom & Dad's 60th Wedding Anniversary some years ago, called, "Still I Love Him." If you don't mind mild sentimentality, it may be on digitrad. It's been recorded but only on a cassette, "Jean Ritchie Concert." As I just celebrated my own 50th Anniversary, and only a beginner on computer, haven't learnt how to give you a tune yet (but I will!)...if you're at all interested, I'll see that you find it.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Willa
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 04:22 PM

How about "THE FOLKS WHO LIVE ON THE HILL?"
Some day, we'll sit and look at that same old view,
Just we two; Darby and Joan,
Who used to be Jack and Jill.
And we'll be pleased to be called,
What we have always been called –
The folk who live on the hill.

"Side by Side"
When they've all had their troubles and parted,
We’ll be the same as we started,
Traveling our road,
Sharing our load,
Side by side.

"SILVER THREADS AMONG THE GOLD"
But my darling you will be, will be,
Always young and fair to me.

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 20-Mar-02.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: reggie miles
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 05:32 PM

My friend Robert "Oneman" Johnson wrote one called "I'm Gettin' Thick In The Middle, Gettin' Thin On Top".

Subject: Lyr Add: GEORDIE BLACK
From: bill\sables
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 06:11 PM

GEORDIE BLACK

Ma name is Geordie Black, aa'm getting very aad.
Aav'e hewed tons of coal in me time,
An' when aa wes just a lad, aa could either put or hew.
Oot the others aa could aalways tak the shine.
Aa'm gannin doon the hill, Aa cannet use the pick.
The maister hes ne pity on aad bones.
So noo aa'm on the bank, an'aa while me time away
Amang the bits o' lads wi' pickin oot the stones.

Oh me name is Geordie Black. In me time aa've been a crack.
An' aa've warked baith in the Gyuss an' in the Betty.
An' the coals upon the Tyne oot the others tak the shine,
An' we lick 'em aal for iron doon at Hawks's.

Noo when aa wes just a lad carried on me father's back,
An' away he wad take me te the pit.
An' te get in the cage an' te gan doon belaw
'Twas enough te mak a youngster tak a fit.
For te sit an' keep a door midst the darkness an' the gloom
Ay, mony an 'oor be messel,
An' te hear the aaful shots thar rummelled roond the pit,
An' the lumps o' roondy coal come doon pellmell.

Noo aa'll say good neet, for it's nearly time te lowse.
An' aa've done me best te please ye, ivery one.
Young lads that's here the neet, mind, de the thing that's reet.
In this warld that's the way te get on.
So here's success te trade baith on the Wear an' Tyne,
Aa divent like te see the place se slack.
For if wor pit lies idle, ne pay note comes teneet,
An' it grieves the heart o' poor Geordie Black

Bill

---

Note: Bill's version was added to the Digital Tradition in 2001. -Joe Offer-

Subject: Lyr Add: BANKS OF THE DEE^^^
From: bill\sables
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 06:15 PM

BANKS OF THE DEE

Last Saturday night on the banks of the Dee
I met an old man in distress I could see
We sat down together and to me he did say
I've lost my employment 'cause my hair it's turned grey

Chorus;

I am an old miner aged fifty and six
If I could get lots I would raffle my picks
I'd raffle them, I'd sell them I'd throw them away
For I can't get employment my hair has turned grey

When I was a young chap I was just like the rest
Each day in the pit I'd do my very best
When I had a loose place I'd be filling all day
Now at fifty and six my hair it's turned grey

Last Wednesday night to the reckoning I went
To the colliery office I went straight fornenst
I'd just got my pay packet, I was walking away
When they gave me my notice 'cause my hair it's turned grey

Now all you young fellows, it's you that's to blame
If you get good places, you'll do just the same
If you get good prices you'll hew them away
But you're sure to regret it when your hair it's turned grey.

Bill

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 07:26 PM

Don't forget That Silver-Haired Daddy Of Mine. I posted the lyrics in another thread along with a link to a recording of this great old standard.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 07:37 PM

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the Beatles, "When I'm 64"........

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 08:41 PM

I didn't mean the traditional Irish song,"Still I Love Him," which IS is Digitrad (but has nothing to do with growing old). Mine begins, "Who's this young man with bright hair shining." Chorus is:
Still I love him, still I love him,
Though he knows it, still I tell him
Every mornin, again at evenin,
Night and noonin, still I love him.

Sure are some good songs named above. Someone thinking of doing an album about growing old? Might be a good idea, but who'd be around to buy it?!!

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Stewie
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 09:37 PM

Here's a few good'uns:

Sydney Carter's 'Silver in the Stubble'
Tim O'Brien's 'Like I Used to Be
Pete Mundey's 'TAKE YOUR TIME' (recorded by Yetties)
John Verner's 'Where've you been' (recorded by Kathy Mattea)
Hugh Moffatt's 'Jack and Lucy'
'JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO'

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Trevor
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 08:11 AM

Hey Deckman, you've been listening to Fred Wedlock!

Apart from 'The Oldest Swinger in Town' my two favourite songs of all time are 'Grandad' by Clive Dunn (it was so nice to hear it on the Ed Stewart show yesterday) and 'Grandma We Love You', by the St Winifred's School Choir.

And they're coming to take me away.

(Wasn't that a banned number 1 hit in the UK)

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Lynn T
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 08:45 AM

Garnet Rogers has a good one, fairly recent, called "What's Wrong With This Picture" -- lots of desperately cutting details about how his middle-aged image in the mirror ain't him.

Lynn

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 11:34 AM

Southern gospel singer Jake Hess on the Gaither Homecoming Hour cable TV show, singing Wore Out. Very funny.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: NicP
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 12:06 PM

Rosie Asplen wrote a song a while back about the vicissitudes of growing old. From memory failing 'cos I hit forty myself this month, the chorus went "Oh God, me Mother's turned forty, You think she'd be ready to stop, But somebody told her that life begins there Now she's gone right over the top" I'll try and dig out the rest of it, or if you see Rosie on the UK scene, I'm sure she would be delighted to pass it on. Cheers NicP

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: LR Mole
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 12:07 PM

Song the Kingston Trio did: "When I was young/And dreams were new/Iloved a girl/Who looked like you/I saaw her fce/in mountain streams/I lingered there and lost myself in dreams..." Good tune, and they sang in in soft unison, not quasi-barbershop. I'll look up the writer tonight.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 12:19 PM

Um, I thought, and the trad agrees, that Pete Seeger wrote that great Get up and Go song [MY GET UP AND GO HAS GOT UP AND WENT], but I really like knowing that about Lee Hayes! I can't think of anything else except to note that Americans are very child-oriented, and do not seem to prize being older. Look at trying to find a NICE birthday card for someone turning anything more than 25... so perhaps that's why the dearth of good English-language songs prizing old age... we get HELLO IN THERE. I'd like to see what people from other cultures, especially if there are any people from Pays en Voie de Sous-developpement around... I bet there are nice African songs about old age, for instance!

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 02:33 PM

There is of course that Warren Zevon song about your S... being F...ed Up

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Pseudolus
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 02:45 PM

Being a big Jimmy Buffett fan I would have to mention "A PIRATE LOOKS AT FORTY". Another song I always kinda liked was a song that George Burns recorded called "I Wish I was Eighteen Again".

Frank

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: ray bucknell
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 03:33 PM

Has anybody mentioned Tom Paxton's "Modern Maturity" or, even better, his "NOT TONIGHT, MARIE"?

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 06:11 AM

Has anyone mentioned the old music hall song beloved of pantomime dames and other drag acts: NO-ONE LOVES A FAIRY WHEN SHE'S FORTY"?
RtS

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,winterbright
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 01:43 PM

How do I know my youth is all spent?/ My get up and go has got up and went/ But in spite of it all I'm able to grin/ and think of the places my get up has been.../ Check it out in Rise Up Singing. Also:

I want to live to be an old woman/ shawl around my shoulders, gum a piece o' chicken/ I want to live to be an old woman, sittin' on the porch. Linda somebody; I can track it down - it's not in Rise Up.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,bflat
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 02:59 PM

Guest,winterbright, The song you are looking for in Rise Up Singing is: Get Up and Go. It is in the Time and changes section.

As for my own contribution to this thread, how about: TRY TO REMEMBER. The lyrics are in the digitrad so I won't recap here. I've always enjoyed this song because it fits the romantic in me.

Ellen

Subject: Lyr Add: WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? (Rogers)
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 03:27 PM

Thanks fer reminding me of this one... I haven't played it in a while, but have felt like I should!

;-)

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Garnet Rogers
Off the CD "Summer Lightning"

What's wrong with this picture? There's something not right
My eyes feel like marbles man My teeth are too tight
What's wrong with my mirror That's not the boy that we love
My mouth tastes like the inside of a truck-driver's glove
What's wrong with this picture?

What's wrong with this picture? Who put grey in my beard
How did that happen, my god I look weird
Is that my real waist line are those really my thighs
Who shrunk these jeans down to half of their size
What's wrong with this picture?

How did I get here, my god I look bad
I went to bed a young man now I look like somebody's dad
Where did the years go Where is my hair?
The way that the time flies it just isn't fair
What's wrong with this picture?

What's wrong with this picture? Think I'll go back to bed
I'll spend the day with the covers pulled up over my head
'cause ya can't fight the reaper man, he's quick and he's mean
I feel just like the Porche that belonged to James Dean
What's wrong with this picture

Where did my life go? I had so much planned
Who took my hourglass? I lost all my sand
How did this happen? Man give me a break
I thought I was hitting my stride I got left at the gate
What's wrong with this picture?

It's done in a great, kinda angry blues rock thing... really cool!

;-)

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 03:42 PM

Older Women Make Better Lovers

I forgot who it's by...several (well, many) years ago, after surgery I was taking my first walk in the yard, and a haywagon full of teenaged boys hauling hay in the field across from my house broke into a chorus of that song. I think I cried. ;-)

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Metchosin
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 04:04 PM

CAT'S IN THE CRADLE by Harry Chapin, mind you it wouldn't be one that you would be inclined to sing at some sort of celebratory gathering.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Grab
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 07:32 AM

Prettiest Eyes by Beautiful South. Lovely romantic song, loving someone as they are.

Grab.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Brian Hoskin
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 08:21 AM

I think Rodney Crowell's Song For Life kind of fits in here somewhere.

Brian

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Keith A at work
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 11:05 AM

Bold Fenian Men features an old woman remembering

Subject: Lyr Add: OLDER WOMEN MAKE BEAUTIFUL LOVERS
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 11:19 AM

Mary, could it have been Ronnie McDowell's classic mid-80's country song "Older Women Make Beautiful Lovers"?

Older women, make beautiful lovers
Older women, they understand
I've been around some, and I have discovered
That older women know just how to please a man.

Everybody seems to love those younger women
From eighteen on up to twenty-five
Well I love 'em too, but I'm tellin' you
Learnin' how to really love, takes a little time.

So baby don't you worry about growin' older
Those young girls ain't got nothin' in you
'Cause it takes some livin', to get good at givin'
And givin' love is just where you could teach them a thing or two.

Older women, make beautiful lovers
Older women, they understand
I've been around some, and I have discovered
That older women know just how to please a man.

Great song...80's country, sigh...reminds me of my childhood.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 11:26 AM

Sounds right Matt! No wonder I couldn't find the lyrics. I think the surgery was about 1983. I was only 34 years old that year, but those kids really put me in my place!

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN YOU ARE OLD AND GREY (Tom Lehrer)
From: NightWing
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 11:48 PM

This one is also more about contemplating aging. But I can't resist tossing a Tom Lehrer lyric in where there's an opportunity. You can find a nice midi of the tune at this link.

When You Are Old And Grey

As recorded by Tom Lehrer on "Revisited" (1960)

Since I still appreciate you,
Let's find love while we may.
Because I know I'll hate you
When you are old and grey.

So say you love me here and now,
I'll make the most of that.
Say you love and trust me,
For I know you'll disgust me
When you're old and getting fat.

An awful debility,
A lessened utility,
A loss of mobility
Is a strong possibility.
In all probability
I'll lose my virility
And you your fertility
And desirability,
And this liability
Of total sterility
Will lead to hostility
And a sense of futility,
So let's act with agility
While we still have facility,
For we'll soon reach senility
And lose the ability.

Your teeth will start to go, dear,
Your waist will start to spread.
In twenty years or so, dear,
I'll wish that you were dead.

I'll never love you then at all
The way I do today.
So please remember,
When I leave in December,
I told you so in May.

I have also seen this song quoted somewhere with a different final verse, to wit:

I'll never love you then at all
In these words you can trust
So please remember,
When I leave in December,
I told you in August.

I usually do the alternate final verse as a reprise with a slightly different tune. *EG*

BB,
NightWing

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,celticblues5
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 12:04 AM

Another great one I think I mentioned in a previous thread on this topic is Saffire's "I need a young, young man to drive away my Middle Aged Blues..." *BG*

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: ddw
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 12:40 AM

It Was A Very Good Year

Thirty-Nine and Holding (either Jerry Lee Lewis or Mickey Gilley — can't remember which)

SILVER THREADS AMONG THE GOLD

A Couple More Years (Shel Silverstein)

Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine (Tom T. Hall)

FIXIN' TO DIE BLUES(Bukka White)

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Ritchie
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 08:33 AM

Vin Garbitt ( radio 2 performer of the year )sings 'MAN OF THE EARTH' the writer of who escapes me at the minute. I posted the lyrics on a thread a while ago. Cracking song.

Scorcha, I was speedin' along like a flash of thunder to put 'When I'm 64' on ! well done.

regards Ritchie

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: mkebenn
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 02:50 PM

ddw beat me to "when I was seventeen", but I'll add Paul Simon's "Old friends/Bookends" Mike

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Hollowfox
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 02:52 PM

Deckman, check out the DT for the Charlie Poole song "OLD AND ONLY IN THE WAY" for your nursing home gigs. Kenny Hall used to sing it in nursing homes and the inmates loved it, although the staff cringed.
For songs about the good points of aging, see if you can get almost any of Faith Petric's albums. (I'm sure Mr. Greenhaus can help.) I've spent a couple of days trying to find my copy of the casette with "GERITOL GYPSY" on it, but I think one of the kids has it in their room, so I can't find it to give you the title. Darnit. I think Melvina Reynolds probably had a few songs on the subject as well.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 07:17 PM

How about Neal and Leandra's song OLD LOVE? It's in DT, and it's brought a tear to my eye more than once.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: dagenham doc
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 04:36 AM

I would like for to have in the winter of life
A neat little cottage for me and my wife
With a barrel of ale and a snug little fire
And food that's sufficient is all I desire.

For I'm growing old and my locks are all grey
No more will I dance with the young and the gay
For time has determined this route to unfold
I've a mark on my forehead to show I am old

I heard this haunting song a couple of years back at the Tap and Spile, Whitby. If anyone knows about it I'd love to hear. That's all that comes to mind.

My old dad, my dear old dad Charlie, a great singer died that same year aged ninety five. He said by the time you reach ninety you know everything. All you've got to do is remember it.

Doc.

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 20-Mar-02.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 11:41 AM

TILL I'M TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG (Kevin Welch). Great song. It was a hit for Moe Bandy a number of years ago.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 11:42 AM

Mose Allison "When Is becomes Was"

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Genie
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 02:39 PM

Some that haven't been mentioned but fit the category in one way or another are:
WHEN I FIRST CAME TO THIS LAND
SUNRISE, SUNSET
TURN AROUND
I'M GLAD I'M NOT YOUNG ANYMORE (Sung by Maurice Chevalier)
YOUNG AT HEART
Angel from Montgomery (John Prine)
Growing Older But Not Up (Jimmy Buffet)
A DAISY A DAY
KISSES SWEETER THAN WINE
Hello, Young Lovers
THE OLD GRAY MARE, She Ain't What She Used To Be
Old Hippie (The Bellamy Brothers)
Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms
OLD OAKEN BUCKET
Love, Me (Colin Raye)
I'LL TAKE YOU HOME AGAIN, KATHLEEN
Amanda (Don Williams)
Madame Jeannette

And there's a song I heard in a movie that was set, I think, in the 19th C., and had the line,
"I am old and gray and I've lost my way, All my tomorrows were yesterday ..."
Can't recall the rest of it. (I think a very young Angela Lansbury was singing it, and it may have been in the movie "Bel Ami.")

How about Edith Piaf's theme song, "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien?"
She also sang a great song about "Le Vieux Piano" ("The Old Piano") which has just died. It's a metaphor for the aging of the folks who played it and heard its music.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 03:29 PM

What's the life of a man, any more than a leaf?
A man has his season, so why should he grieve?
All thro' this life we appear fine and gay
Then like leaves we will wither, and soon fade away!
Had you seen the leaves but a few days ago---
How beautiful and green they all did seem to grow;
A frost came upon them and withered them all,
Then a storm came upon them, and down they did fall!

One of my favourites from the English southwest.

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 20-Mar-02.

Subject: Lyr Add: SAIR FYLED HINNY and THE HEWER/AA CUD HEW
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 03:35 PM

Two come to mind, both from the North east of England. The first is usually called "SAIR FYLED HINNY" or some other such attempt at the dialect. I have never seen it written without an attempt at the dialect, so I won't break the tradition:

Sair fyled, Hinny
Sair fyled noo
Sait fyled, hinny
Sin' I kenned thou!

I was young and lusty
I was in my prime
I was young and lusty
Many's the lang time

Sair ...

When I was five and twenty
I was brave and bold
Now at five and sixty
I'm baith stiff and cold

Sair..

Thus said the old man
To the oak tree
Sair fyled am I
Sin' I kenned thee!

(a rough translation of the chorus in plainer English: Greatly failed am I, friend, since I [first] knew you)

The second is THE HEWER, which I've heard from Louis Killen:

When I was young, and in my prime
Ee, aye, I could hew!
I was hewing all the time
But me hewing days are through, through
But me hewing days are through.

I've lain down flat, and I've shovelled coal
Ee, aye, I could hew!
And your eyes did smart in the dust-filled hole
But me hewing days are through, through
But me hewing days are through.

...

Its soon no more the pit I'll see
Ee, aye, I could hew!
But I'll carry it round inside of me
But me hewing days are through, through
But me hewing days are through.

There are some of the middle verses missing in that, but I forget them for the moment

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 20-Mar-02.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 05:06 PM

This one, South Street Waltz, is interesting in that it had its roots in a scene from the movie "Harry and Tonto", and I had no idea whether or not it was realistic or possible. But the first time I sang it at the Seattle Song Circle, my friend told me that exactly the same thing had happened to his mother: she had severe Alzheimer's disease, but when music played she could dance as she had when she was young.

It's also interesting from a songwriting perspective, in that I started writing a song about my grandparents, who were married in 1919 and lived in South Philadelphia. But the song took a left turn as I was writing it, and wound up being about two people I never knew. It's fascinating when that happens.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 05:11 PM

I know I sent somebody (Joe?) the tune to that song, but I don't know if or how it's accessible.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Joe_F
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 08:09 PM

Love's Old Sweet Song
Slow Train through Georgia

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Genie
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 06:52 PM

Bert,

Did you ever find the words for Jimmie Rodgers' "Daddy dear old Daddy?"

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: DonD
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 09:01 PM

As I scrolled down the thread, A number of titles came to me and some of them didn'y get mentioned yet -- but ...

Now I'm at he end and I can't remember any of them! Tell me about the joys of getting old(er).

BTW is the Brel 'Vieu8x Amantes' the one about the clock ticking away? That's a beauty, but most of his songs are, and it has always seemed to me that hey all have a sense of getting old.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: DancingMom
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 10:36 PM

The first one I thoght of was "Sunrise, Sunset" from "Fiddler on the Roof" (mentioned above)

Kathy Mattea sang a song called "Eighteen Wheels" about a truck driver making his last run before retiring: "Eighteen wheels and a dozen roses, Ten more miles on his four-day run, a few more songs on his all-night radio, Then he'll spend the rest of his life with the one that he loves."

Or something like that. I always thought it was a cool song. Sharon

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jim Krause
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 10:52 PM

How about Charlie Poole's "Old And Only in the Way." And what a surprise, I couldn't locate it in the DigiTrad. Not having the record close by me, here's what I remember off the top of my head

CHORUS
So let us cheer them on
For they won't be with us long
Don't quarrel with them because they're old and gray
For remember when you're young
Old age to you will come
You'll be OLD AND GRAY AND ONLY IN THE WAY
Jim

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Genie
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 02:28 AM

Mark, That "South Street Waltz' is a great song. Reminds me of the songwriter Benny Davis's* younger sister Celia in her latter years. She had been a jazz singer, and at the time I knew her, several years before her death, she suffered from advanced dementia, but when the music to a song she knew started--and she knew just about every popular American song written before 1975--her face would light up and she'd sing every word!

That song also brings to mind Nanci Griffith's song "Love at the Five and Dime." No memory loss mentioned in that one, but the young couple age together, through the arthritis that takes Eddie's ability to play his musical instrument, etc., and they're still dancing "a little closer" into their golden years.

Genie

*Benny Davis co-wrote "Baby Face," "[My Little] Margie," and other popular US hits of the 1920s and '30s.

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN THE CHILDREN COME HOME (Henry Lawson
From: Mudlark
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 03:12 AM

There is a lovely song, don't know who wrote it but from Australia, I think, called "I'll Keep the old place til the children come home."

On a lonely selection, away in the West
There lived an old woman who worked without rest
And she crooned as she toiled 'neath the sky's glassy dome
"I'll keep the old place 'til the children come home"

For she mends all the fences, she lambs and she plows
She drives the old horse, she milks all the cows
And she says to herself as she patches the stack
"I'll keep the old place 'til the children come back."

Whenever the scowling old Sundowners come
And cunningly as if the master's at home
"Be off," she replies, "with your blarney and cant
Or I'll call my son Andy who's working behant.

"Be off," she replies, though she trembles with fear
For she lives all alone, and with no neighbors near
And she thinks to herself when she's like to despond
That her boys are at work in the paddock beyond

Well, it's 5 lonely years since her old husband died
And oft as he lay on his deathbed he sighed,
"A man can bring up 10 children he can,
But it's strange that 10 sons cannot keep one old man."

For none of her children need follow the plow
And some have grown rich in the city ere now
But she thinks they might come when the shearing is done
And she'll keep the old place if it's only for one.

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN THE CHILDREN COME HOME (Henry Lawson
From: Genie
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 03:34 AM

Here's the song with line breaks:

WHEN THE CHILDREN COME HOME
Henry Lawson

On a lonely selection, away in the West,
There lived an old woman who worked without rest,
And she crooned as she toiled 'neath the sky's glassy dome,
'I'll keep the old place till the children come home.'

For she mends all the fences, she lambs and she plows,
She drives the old horse, she milks all the cows,
And she says to herself as she patches the stack,
'I'll keep the old place till the children come back.'

Whenever the scowling old Sundowners come,
And cunningly, as if the master's at home,
'Be off,' she replies, 'with your blarney and cant
Or I'll call my son Andy who's working behant.'

'Be off,' she replies, tho' she trembles with fear,
For she lives all alone and with no neighbors near,
And she thinks to herself, when she's like to despond,
That her boys are are work in the paddock beyond.

Well, it's five lonely years since her old husband died,
And oft as he lay on his deathbed he sighed,
'A man can bring up ten children, he can,
But it's strange that ten sons cannot keep one old man.'

For none of her children need follow the plow,
And some have grown rich in the city ere now,
But she thinks they might come when the shearing is done,
And she'll keep the old place, if it's only for one.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Genie
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 03:40 AM

That last line of the fourth verse should be:

"That her boys are at work in the paddock beyond."

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jeanie
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 07:05 AM

The Sydney Carter song : "Silver in the Stubble" hasn't been mentioned yet. (In the DigiTrad):

"For the leaves are getting greener,

And spring is on the way,

The girls are getting prettier

And younger every day"

The people I used to hear singing that song around 30 years ago really *are* of that silver-in-the-stubble age now !

"Sunrise, Sunset" has already been mentioned - and there's another lovely, lesser-known one that Golda and Tevye sing in 'Fiddler on the Roof': "Do you love me ? - do I WHAT ?" Always brings a tear to my eye.

And how about "Old Friends, sat on a park bench like bookends", Simon & Garfunkel..."Can you imagine us, years from today, sharing a park bench quietly. How terribly strange to be seventy." I remember my cousin and I listening to that when the song first came out, in our early teens, and yes, it did seem a terribly strange thought. We both said we'd remind each other of that when we *were* seventy. Not quite such a strange thought, now...

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: aussiebloke
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 07:09 AM

One of the has-beens

aussiebloke

Subject: Lyr Add: GREY OCTOBER CLOUDS (Tommy Makem)
From: The Pooka
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 01:22 PM

Wonderful thread & songs. This one must be listed above somewhere; but if so I missed it in my scrolling, so: Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet

And (now for something completely different),Not Dark Yet

And, one of *my* favorites (gee *that's* a big surprise :),

GREY OCTOBER CLOUDS

Words and music by Tommy Makem

The summer birds have gathered and are flying to the sun
I saw the wild geese heading south on their October run
The crops have all been harvested and all the work is done
And the grey October clouds are drifting by

Chorus:
Drifting by; drifting by
And the grey October clouds are drifting by

In every field my fancy ran, wild flowers could be seen
On every hill and valley and the meadows in between
Now leaves of brown come tumbling down from trees that once were green
And the grey October clouds go drifting by
{Chorus)
On summer dawns I walked alone by singing silver streams
The lark's song filled the golden morn and I could dream my dreams
The good times pass so quickly, that was long ago it seems
Now the grey October clouds go drifting by
(Chorus)
In the summer of our lifetimes, the skies were always blue
We'd weave our dreams with noble thoughts and dreams could all come true
Believe in all your youthful dreams and they'll live on for you
When the grey October clouds go drifting by
Chorus

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,RobRoy
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 02:00 PM

Why not take a look at the sympathetic treatment Robert Burns gives to ageing in the lovely song John Anderson My Jo

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: The Pooka
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 02:25 PM

Guest RobRoy, yes indeed, a good one; also cited by others above I think. /Which reminds me: on the "Time Out of Mind" album with "Not Dark Yet" (blueclickied above), ol' Bobby Dylan has "Highlands", also sort-of a 'song about getting older'(theme of the whole album anyway). It uses the refrain "My heart's in the highlands..." --- which is the title of another fine Bobbie Burns poem/song, isn't it?

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Genie
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 05:54 PM

How about "I Wish They'd Do It Now"?

Subject: Lyr Add: 'I remember springtime and the hope of...
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 06:18 PM

This is either depressing or wistful, depending on my mood.

I remember springtime and the hope of days to come
And I remember laughing in the clean light of the sun
And dreaming of the beauty, this shining life would hold
And sorrow could not live within the dreaming

And I remember summer came, as promised by the spring
I ran through the brightness and the heat that made my heart's-blood sing
And nights were filled with magic, and the stars' eternal light
And the sweet, compelling secrets of the darkness

I remember autumn, bittersweet, as leaves began to fall
All red and gold, one last brief fire, before the end of all
And I saw the light was fading, and the quiet settling in
And all the world was hushed before the winter

And now I look to winter, and the thin, grey light of dawn
The landscape, desolate and dim, the colors pale and drawn
No fire will warm my heart, no blanket hold me close
Like the arms of lovers I once had in summer

(I usually repeat 1st verse)

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jim Krause
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 06:52 PM

Jeri, Where'd you get that one? Lovely lyric.
Jim

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: 53
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 07:34 PM

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac.

Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: LIFE GETS AWAY (Clint Black)
From: Genie
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 07:44 PM

Just stumbled onto this one:

Life Gets Away - Clint Black

Intro:  |G    |C    |Am7   |G    |Em    |C    |D    |G    ||

Verse1: F                 C             G
        We're tied to our memories they won't let us stray
              Em        C            Am7        D
        We're not gonna lose ones we made yesterday
           F           C             G            C
        we look to our future and we make all our plans
           Em       C            Am7        D
        as if we control what is out of our hands

Chorus:     G              C           Am7         G
        the world keeps on turning I'm learning to see
        G             C           D         G
        right where I am is where I have to be
            G               C         Am7           G
        you can't count the pages all ages hear the call
                  Em          C             D            G
        no matter how hard we try life gets away from us all

        [intro riff]

Verse2: We start getting older the moment we live
        look over your shoulder there's hindsight to give
        come good days and bad days the sun's gonna rise
        so why look beyond what's in front of your eyes?

        [CHORUS]

        no matter how hard we try life gets away from us all

        [intro riff]
 
Coda:   |F    |C    |G      ||

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 06:57 AM

It is from the film Cat Baloo. If anyone has the lyrics I would appreciate it

Subject: Lyr Add: THE OLD FOLKS / LES VIEUX (Jacques Brel)
From: GUEST,Paranoid Android
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 08:14 AM

Song: THE OLD FOLKS Lyrics

The old folks don't talk much
And they talk so slowly when they do
They are rich, they are poor, their illusions are gone
They share one heart for two
Their homes all smell of thyme, of old photographs
And an old-fashioned song
Though you may live in town you live so far away
When you've lived too long
And have they laughed too much, do their dry voices crack
Talking of times gone by
And have they cried too much, a tear or two
Still always seems to cloud the eye
They tremble as they watch the old silver clock
When day is through
It tick-tocks oh so slow, it says, "Yes," it says, "No"
It says, "I'll wait for you."
The old folks dream no more
The books have gone to sleep, the piano's out of tune
The little cat is dead and no more do they sing
On a Sunday afternoon
The old folks move no more, their world's become too small
Their bodies feel like lead
They might look out the window or else sit in a chair
Or else they stay in bed
And if they still go out, arm in arm, arm in arm
In the morning's chill
It's to have a good cry, to say their last good-bye
To one who's older still
And then they go home to the old silver clock
When day is through
It tick-tocks oh so slow, it says, "Yes," it says, "No"
It says, "I'll wait for you."
The old folks never die
They just put down their heads and go to sleep one day
They hold each other's hand like children in the dark
But one will get lost anyway
And the other will remain just sitting in that room
Which makes no sound
It doesn't matter now, the song has died away
And echoes all around
You'll see them when they walk through the sun-filled park
Where children run and play
It hurts too much to smile, it hurts too much but life goes on
For still another day
As they try to escape the old silver clock
When day is through
It tick-tocks oh so slow, it says, "Yes," it says, "No"
It says, "I'll wait for you."
The old, old silver clock that's hanging on the wall
That waits for us
All

(From Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in Paris)

This was recorded by John Denver among others

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 09:27 AM

Wow,
Some gentle clone has inserted Blue Clickies for the song links.
My post has one and I couldn't do them back then.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 10:30 PM

"Sailor's Rest" by Stan Rogers. (Not all songs about getting older have to be in favor of it. "No locks on the doors.")

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: If you do the right thing under duress, you still get credit, but you don't have as much fun. :||

Subject: Lyr Add: 75 SEPTEMBERS (Cheryl Wheeler)
From: Celtlover
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 11:11 PM

"75 Septembers" ...a lovely song from Cheryl Wheeler, written about her father...


75 SEPTEMBERS
Words And Music By
Cheryl Wheeler

In the year of the yellow cab
Shadow of the great world war
The third kid grandmom had
Came into this world
On a rolling farm in Maryland
When Wilson was the president
As summer blew her goodbye through the trees

A child of changing times
Growing up between the wars
Fords rolled off the lines
And bars all closed their doors
and I imagine you back then
With snap brim hat and farmer's tan
Where horses drew their wagons through the fields

Now the fields are all four lanes
and the moon's not just a name
Are you more amazed at how things change
Or how they stay the same
And do you sit here on this porch and wonder
How the time flies by
Or does it seem to barely creep along
With 75 Septembers come and gone

Were the fields all gold and fawn
Was the spring house dark and cool
Did the rooster crow at dawn
When they got you up for school
And would you tell me once again
The tales of granddad's hired men
And how they drove the old dirt road to town

Cause now the fields are all four lanes
And the moon's not just a name
Are you more amazed at how things change
Or how they stay the same
And do you sit here on this porch and wonder
How the times flies by
Or does it seem to barely creep along
With 75 Septembers come and gone

In the year of the yellow cab
Shadow of the great world war

Subject: Lyr Add: OLDER (from They Might Be Giants)
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 02:59 AM

OLDER
by They Might Be Giants

You're older than you've ever been
and now you're even older
and now you're even older
and now you're even older

You're older than you've ever been
and now you're even older
and now you're older still

time - is marching on
and time - is still marching on

this day will soon be at an end
and now it's even sooner
and now it's even sooner
and now it's even sooner

this day will soon be at an end
and now it's even sooner
and now it's sooner still

You're older than you've ever been
and now you're even older
and now you're even older
and now you're even older

You're older than you've ever been
and now you're even older
and now you're older still

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: cushty
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 07:35 PM

Does anyone know the rest of this one?

When I was younger I used to smoke fags in school,
Swear at the teachers, in class break all the rules.
But now I'm too old to be young again,
It's years since I saw my old friends,
And how I wish I was young again,
For the fun, the fun to find,
And oh, how I wish I was young again,
For the days I left behind.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE GOOD BOY (from Carl Sandburg)
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:48 PM

THE GOOD BOY
as sung by Carl Sandburg

I have led a good life, full of peace and quiet.
I shall have an old age full of rum and riot.
I have been a good boy, wed to peace and study.
I shall have an old age ribald, coarse, and bloody.

I have never cut throats, though I often yearned to,
Never sung the dirty songs that my fancy turned to.
I have been a good boy and done what was expected.
I shall be an old bum, loved but unrespected.

--- Joe Fineman [e-mail]
||: If it moves, fondle it, except porcupines, ball lightning, and policemen. :||

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: kendall
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:53 PM

I JUST DONT LOOK GOOD NAKED ANYMORE by Sheb Wooley

WILL YOU LOVE ME WHEN I'M OLD? trad.

GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM OF TIME trad.

Bert, I think that songs title is DADDY AND HOME. I know it if anyone wants it.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 10:21 AM

DEARIE
OLD ROCKIN' CHAIR'S GOT ME

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Carol
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 09:04 AM

The Old Lady's Song by Matt Armour

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: mandotim
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 09:29 AM

Steve Ashley's lovely song 'The Rough with the Smooth'?
Tim from Bit on the Side

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: kendall
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 02:15 PM

"Over the hill to the poor house"

Subject: Lyr Add: NAOMI (Ralph McTell)
From: GUEST,jinx
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 04:28 AM

Favourite song about growing old?

'Naomi' Ralph McTell

Age has made her frail
I'm scared to take her in my arms
But there's an understanding now
And a peace behind the eyes
And age is for complaining
But you won't here much from me
Growing old with Naomi

Now I recall the first time
I took her in my arms
At times I was unfaithful
She said: "no future in the past"
So we don't talk about it
She keeps a gentle edge on me
I don't mind growing old with Naomi

She wasn't all I wanted
But she's all I'll ever need
Oh, a rich man always wants some more
And I was rich indeed
A rich man and a poor fool
Yet it turned out right for me
How lucky can you get?
Growing old with Naomi

The kids today, they think that they've
Discovered everything
But me and her, well we'd done it all
Without a wedding ring
Sometimes things remind us
And she's smiling back at me
It ain't hard growing old with Naomi

She wasn't all I wanted
But she's all I'll ever need
Oh, a rich man and a poor fool
And I was rich indeed
I never thought her beautiful
But I do now, 'cause I see
I'm getting wiser
Growing old with Naomi

Oh, the place is kind of quiet now
The kids have all left home
We'd like to see more of them
But we're grateful when they call
And in the quietness afterwards
She comes and sits by me
Make me feel like a man
Growing old with Naomi

Subject: Lyr Add: STRANGE AFFAIR (Richard Thompson)
From: Mr Fox
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 11:50 AM

"Strange Affair" by Richard Thompson

This is a strange affair
The time has come to travel but the road is filled with fear
This is a strange affair
My youth has all been wasted and I'm bent and grey with years
And all my companions are taken away
And who will provide for me against my dying day
I took my own provision, but it fooled me and wasted away

Oh where are my companions?
My mother, father, lover, friend, and enemy
Where are my companions?
They're prisoners of death now, and taken far from me
And where are the dreams I dreamed in the days of my youth
They took me to illusion when they promised me the truth
And what do sleepers need to make them listen,
Why do they need more proof?
This is a strange, this is a strange affair

Won't you give me an answer?
Why is your heart so hard towards the one who loves you best?
When the man with the answer
Has wakened you, and warned you, and called you to the test
Wake up from your sleep that builds like clouds upon your eyes
And win back the life you had that's now a dream of lies
Turn your back on yourself and if you follow,
You'll win the lover's prize
This is a strange, this is a strange affair

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 08:22 PM

Somebody called my attention to htis thread. Take a look - it's a good one.

-Joe, getting older-

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: meself
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 08:47 PM

Leonard Cohen's 'Tower of Song':

My [something] is [something],
and my hair is grey;
I ache in the places
Where I used to play.

'Yesterday When I was Young'

'Time, Gentlemen, Time'

'The Boys of Barr Na Sraide' [sp.]

'Save Your Money When You're Young'

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: meself
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 10:34 PM

'Too Old to Think' (Sonny Boy Williamson II)

'Dublin in The Rare Ould Times'

Subject: Lyr Add: GENERATIONS OF CHANGE (Matt Armor)
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 03:07 AM

Matt Armor's "Generations of Change" is a fine song on growing older and handing on the baton to the young.

GENERATIONS OF CHANGE
(Matt Armor)

My faither was a baillie frae a wee fairm at Caiplie
He worked on the land a' the days o' his life
By the time he made second he aye said he reckoned
He'd ploughed near on half o' the East Neuk o' Fife
He fee'd on at Randerston, Crawhill and Clephinton
Cambo and Carnbee and big Rennie Hill
At Kingsbarn he married, at Boarhills he's buried
But man, had he lived, he'd be ploughing on still

        For those days were his days, those ways were his ways
        Tae follow the ploo while his back was still strong
        But those days have passed and the time came at last
        For the weakness of age to make way for the young.

I wisnae fir plooin', tae the sea I wis goin'
Tae follow the fish and the fisherman's ways
In rain, hail and sunshine I've watched the lang run line
Nae man mair contented his whole working day
I've lang lined the Fladden Ground, the Dutch and the Dogger Bank
Pulled the big fish frae the deep Devil's Hole
I've side trawled off Shetland, the Faroes and Iceland
In weather much worse than a body could thole.

        For that day was my day, that way was my way
        Tae follow the fish while my back was still strong
        But that day has passed and the time come at last
        For the weakness of age to make way for the young

My sons they have grown and away they have gone
Tae search for black oil in the far northern sea
Like oilmen they walk and like Yankees they talk
There's no' much in common 'tween my sons and me
They've rough rigged on Josephine, Forties and Ninian
Claymore and Dunlin, Fisher and Awk
They've made fortunes for sure for in one run ashore
They spend more than I earned in a whole season's work

        But this day is their day, this way is their way
        Tae ride the rough rigs while their backs are still strong
        But this day will pass and the time come at last
        For the weakness of age to make way for the young

My grandsons are growing, to the school they're soon going
But the lang weeks o' summer they spend here wi' me
We walk through the warm days, talk o' the auld ways
The cornfield and codfish, the land and the sea
We walk through the fields my father once tilled
Talk wi' the old men that once sailed wi' me
Man, it's been awfu' good, I showed them all I could
O' the past and the present, what their future might be

   For the morn will be their day, what will be their way
        What will they make of their land, sea and sky
Man, I've seen awfu' change but it still it seems gie strange
        Tae look at my world through a young laddie's eyes.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: pavane
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 04:37 AM

Bob Dylan, always wanting to be different, wrote one about getting YOUNGER

"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"
(My Back Pages)

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 12 Jun 11 - 11:02 PM

"Rum and Coconut Water" originally "Gin and Coconut Water" by Wilmoth Houdini. "I remember when I was young, I was very robust and strong."

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jun 11 - 01:27 AM

Here's a new one of mine.

I wanna have a mid life crisis
but if the truth be told
I can't have a mid life crisis
My wife says I'm too old

I wanna drive a bright red sports car
with a pretty young blond for a date
I wanna have a mid life crisis
My wife says it's too late
She said
        I coulda had a crisis at Forty
        or even at Fifty Five
        If I'd wanted a mid life crisis
        I should have done it while I'm still alive

I want a pick up truck with monster wheels
I want to be stacked up with sex appeal
I want tatoos on my arms and chest
A Harley and a black leather vest
I want to let my hair grow long
I want to get to Nashville with this song
I want a Cowboy hat and belt and boots
I want a hand tailored white silk suit

I wanna have a mid life crisis
but if the truth be told
I can't have a mid life crisis
My wife says I'm too old

I wanna drive a bright red sports car
with a pretty young blond for a date
I wanna have a mid life crisis
My wife says it's too late
She said
        I coulda had a crisis at Forty
        or even at Fifty Five
        If I'd wanted a mid life crisis
        I should have done it while I'm still alive

I wanna drive a bright red sports car
with a pretty young blond for a date

Spoken:
I don't think my wife would go for the blond
But how about a sports car?
a 59 Subeam Alpine in British Racing green

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: reynard
Date: 13 Jun 11 - 08:04 AM

Let's not forget "Maids When you're young never wed an old man", a song of great impotence as it says in here somewhere- but I don't see the words so I'll dig them out later.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: PHJim
Date: 13 Jun 11 - 11:02 PM

Sam Baker's WAVES

So many years, so many hardships
So many laughs, so many tears
So many things to remember
'Cause they had 50 years

Now the kids, they got their own kids
Their own kids have grown
She told him not to worry
Say he'd be fine when she was gone

He walks down to the ocean
Bends to touch the water, kneels to pray
Writes her name in sand
Waves wash it away

There are seagulls circling shrimp boats
That turn inside the bay
There's an emptiness inside
That never goes away

He walks down to the ocean
Bends to touch the water, kneels to pray
He writes her name in the sand
Waves wash it away

So many years, so many hardships
So many laughs, so many tears
So many things he cannot remember
'Cause they had 50 years

He walks down to the ocean
Bends to touch kneels to pray
He writes her name in the sand
Waves wash it away
He writes her name in the sand
Waves wash it away

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: PHJim
Date: 13 Jun 11 - 11:06 PM

Age Like Wine    Todd Snider

Old timer, Old timer
It's too late to die young now
Old timer, five and dimer
Trying to find a way to age like wine somehow

my new stuff is nothing like my old stuff was
and either one is much when compared to a show
which will not be as good as another one you saw...
so hell me, i know, i
know, i know

I am an old timer, old timer
it's too late to die young now
old timer, five and dimer
trying to find a way to age like wine somehow

I meant every fool that ever signed
their name up on these walls in the backs of these beer halls and concert halls.
I been threw seven managers,
five labels, a thousand picks and patch cables,
three bands, a band, a bunch of guitar stands,
and cans, and cans, and cans of beer, a bottles of boozes and bags of pot,
and a thousand other things that I forgot.

I thought that I be dead by now... but I'm not.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: PHJim
Date: 13 Jun 11 - 11:15 PM

I just cut and pasted the Todd Snider song and noticed some errors:

"so hell me, i know, i know, i know" should be "so help me, I know, I know, I know"


"I meant every fool that ever signed" should be "I've met every fool that ever signed"

"I been threw seven managers" should be "I've been through seven managers"

"three bands, a band, a bunch of guitar stands" should be "Three bands and a bunch of guitar stands"

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: reynard
Date: 14 Jun 11 - 04:43 AM

Re Maids when you're young- just found it here:

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=3003&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mudcat2+%28mudcat.org+RSS+Feed%29

The version I have from Sam Larner is slightly different so here it is anyway:

MAIDS WHEN YOU'RE YOUNG NEVER WED AN OLD MAN

An old man came courting me, hey ding doorum down               
An old man came courting me, hey duram down.
An old man came courting me, fain would he marry me
Maids when you're young never wed an old man

For he's got no faloorum, falliddle ay oorum
For he's got no faloorum, falliddle ol day
He's got no faloorum, he's lost his ding doorum
So maids when you're young, never wed an old man

Now when we went to the church, hey ding doorum down
When we went to the church, hey duram down.
When we went to the church, he left me in the lurch
Maids when you're young, never wed an old man

Now when we went to our bed, hey ding doorum dah
Now when we went to our bed, hey duram down.
When we went to our bed, he neither done nor said
Maids when you're young never wed an old man

Now when he went to sleep, hey ding doorum dah
Now when we went to sleep, hey duram down.
When we went to sleep, out of bed I did creep
Into the arms of a jolly young man

And I found his faloorum, falliddle ay oorum
I found his faloorum, falliddle ol day
I found his faloorum, he got my dingdoorum
So maids when you're young never wed an old man.

Alternative ending (Julian Flood)

Now he's got Viagra, hey ding doorum dah,
He's got Viagra, hey duram down;
When he takes Viag-a-ra he comes like Niagara,
Maids when you're young you can wed an old man.

He found his faloorum etc

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Richard from Liverpool
Date: 14 Jun 11 - 10:16 AM

How's about this one? Speaks very clearly of the ravages of old age.

Poor Old Horse
Song performed by mummers in the 'Old Horse' play, recorded particularly in Yorkshire around Derbyshire - it made its way into the cities via printed broadsides

Once I was reared in a stable so warm
To keep my tender limbs free from any pain or harm
There's no such usage now, nor can be found at all
I'm forced to travel on a winter's night through hail or rain or snow
Poor old horse! Poor old horse!

My food it was once of the best corn and hay
That grew in all the fields or in the meadows gay
But now I am grown old and scarsely can I crawl
I'm forced to eat the coarsest grass that grows against the wall
Poor old horse! Poor old horse!

My clothing was once of the shining superfine
Then I stood in my stable and did in my glory shine
But now I am grown old and nature does decay
My master frowns upon me and this I hear him say
Poor old horse! Poor old horse!

"He is old and he is cold, and he is both dull and slow
He has eaten up my hay, and has spoiled all my straw
Nor either is he fit to draw in with my team –
Take him and whip him" is now my master's theme
Poor old horse! Poor old horse!

To the huntsman now shall go my old hide and shoes
Likewise my tender carcass the hounds will not refuse
My body that so lately had run so many miles
Over hedges, ditches, brooks and bridges, fences, gates and stiles
Poor old horse! Poor old horse!

(I have recorded a rough and ready version of this song to a tune collected in Liverpool by Frank Kidson: http://aliverpoolfolksongaweek.blogspot.com/2011/04/4-poor-old-horse.html )

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: PHJim
Date: 15 Jun 11 - 07:16 AM

PEOPLE MY AGE _ John Gorka

People my age
Have started looking gross
I cannot say all
And I shouldn't say most
I've seen 'em in the grocery
I've seen 'em up close
And People my age
Have started looking gross

People my age
Are showing some wear
There's holes where their teeth was
And their heads have gone bare
Their brains are shrinking
Faces sinking into fat
And as for the mirror
We won't be looking into that

People my age
Have started looking gross
Maybe not in Colorado
Or up the Silicon Coast
Back in Pennsylvania
I'd eat scrapple on toast
Those were my first steps
On the road to looking gross

People my age
Are looking overripe
Some are getting operations
To tighten up what ain't tight
What gravity's ruined
They try to fix with a knife
What's pleasant in the darkness
Is plain scary in the light

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 16 Aug 17 - 04:04 AM

To the tune of "The Sailors Alphabet", Verses: Mike Boydon, chorus: Lynn Wise.

The Oldsters (Oldies) Alphabet

A's for arthritis, B's the bad back
C is for chest pains, perhaps cardiac
D is for dental decay and decline
E is for eyesight, can't read that top line
CHORUS: Merrily, merrily, so merry go we
       Zimmer Frames and rollators they make our way fre               
       Dementia, infirmity, what e'er comes along
       Give us oldsters (oldies)our tablets and nothing goes wrong!

F is for fissures and fluid retention
G is for gas which I'd rather not mention
H is high blood pressure, I'd rather it low
I for incisions with scars you can show

J is for joints out of socket, won't mend
K is for knees that crack when they bend
L is libido, what happened to sex?
M is for memory, I forget! What comes next?

N is neuralgia, in nerves way down low
O is for osteo, the bones that don't grow
P for prescriptions, I have quite a few
Just give me a pill and I'll be good as new.

Q is for queasy, is it fatal or flu?
R is for reflux, one meal turns to two
S for sleepless nights, counting my fears
T for tinnitus, there's bells in my ears

U is for urinary, big troubles with flow
V is for vertigo, that's 'dizzy' you know
W is for worry, NOW what's going round?
X is for X-ray, and what might be found

Y is another year I'm left here behind
Z is for zest that I still have - in my mind
Z is also for zonked, how I feel all the time
So now I have brought all the letters in rhyme

I've survived all the symptoms my body's deployed
And I've kept twenty-six doctors fully employed
May your troubles be less, your bleesings be more
And nothing but happiness come through your door.


Mike Boydon is in his mid-eighties so I assume he's written this from experience! Mike calls it 'Oldsters Alphabet', but 'Oldies' is a bit easier to sing.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: David C. Carter
Date: 16 Aug 17 - 06:03 AM

Desperados Waiting For A Train

Guy Clark.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: oldhippie
Date: 16 Aug 17 - 11:51 AM

When I'm 64
The Remember Song - Tom Rush

Subject: Lyr Add: I'M GLAD I'M NOT YOUNG ANYMORE
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Jun 18 - 11:19 AM

I'M GLAD I'M NOT YOUNG ANYMORE
Words by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe.
From the film "Gigi" (1958)
As recorded by Maurice Chevalier

Poor boy, poor boy!
Downhearted and depressed and in a spin—
Poor boy, poor boy!
Oh, youth can really do a fellow in.

How lovely to sit here in the shade
With none of the woes of man and maid!
I'm glad I'm not young anymore.
The rivals that don't exist at all,
The feeling you're only two feet tall—
I'm glad that I'm not young anymore.
No more confusion; no morning-after surprise,
No self-delusion that when you're telling those lies
She isn't wise;
And even if love comes through the door,
The kind that goes on forevermore,
Forevermore is shorter than before.
Oh, I'm so glad that I'm not young anymore!

The tiny remark that tortures you,
The fear that your friends won't like her too—
I'm glad I'm not young anymore.
The longing to end the stale affair
Until you find out she doesn't care—
I'm glad that I'm not young anymore.
No more frustration; no star-crossed lover am I.
No aggravation, just one reluctant reply:
"Lady, goodbye!"
The fountain of youth is dull as paint.
Methuselah is my patron saint.
I've never been so comfortable before.
Oh, I'm so glad that I'm not young anymore!

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 28 Jun 18 - 12:00 PM

'Nee Bliddy Good gettin aad' by Ed Pickford- Sunderland song which doesn't translate to southern parts very well, although I believe Geordie Murison of Stonehaven is doing it now...

- if you want the words, check Ed's website & I can be found singing it on Youtube if you don't have the dots!

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 28 Jun 18 - 01:25 PM

Re the OP on this thread.

Ice for piles? Never thought of that. Cheers!

At what age does it become utterly inappropriate to sing 'Teenage Kicks'? is another good question.

Pseu

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 02:11 AM

Surely one of the most sensitive traditional songs about getting old is the 'drunken daft" You mariners All

And when I'm old and can scarcely crawl,
I've an old grey beard and a head that's bald
Crowwn my desire and fulfil my wish;
A pretty young girl and a jug of this

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 04:10 AM

Grown Up Now

Hey look, mum, I can do a stand up wee
Hey I’m really grown up now
No more nappies or sitting on the potty,
Hey I’m really grown up now
From small acorns big oak trees grow
And a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do
So I’m off to write my name in the snow
The boy has become the man.

Hey mum, I can ride my bike
Hey I’m really grown up now
Tall in the saddle sort of John Wayne Like
Hey I’m really grown up now
Look mum, no hands can you believe ?
I fly through the air with the greatest of ease
“Bang” hey look,mum, no front teeth
The boy has become the man

Yesterday I used the f-word
Hey I’m really grown up now
And one or two other ones that I’ve heard
Hey I’m really grown up now
And very soon I’ll say a few more
Though I wouldn’t actually say that I swore
More like it fell down my trouser leg onto the floor
But the boy has become the man

Now I’m sixteen and ready to ride,
Hey I’m really grown up now
On my brand new Yamaha, my gleaming pride
Hey I’m really grown up now
Provisional licence and off we go
Though I didn’t see that patch of oil on the road
Three broken ribs are what I have to show
But the boy has become the man

Today I drank 15 pints of lager
Hey I’m really grown up now
You can probably guess the rest of the saga
Hey I’m really grown up now
We’ll all agree it was an absolute cert
That I’d bump into me mates Hughie and Bert
Technicolour yawn, my head don’t half hurt
But the boy has become the man

Today I kissed Tracey and we used tongues
Hey I’m really grown up now
And I had to hide the love bites from me mum
Hey I’m really grown up now
Three months later and we’ve gone all the way
Though it didn’t last very long I’m bound to say
But I’m gonna tell me mates it lasted all day
The boy has become the man

Me wedding was a piss up we were drunk as rats
Hey I’m really grown up now
And now we’ve spawned three revolting brats
Hey I’m really grown up now
I suppose you could say it was written in the stars
I’d end up selling insurance or second hand cars
Or something where you need to talk out of your arse
Yes the boy has become the man.

Now my mid life crisis has definitely arrived
Hey I’m really grown up now
And I’m entitled to my little bit on the side
Hey I’m really grown up now
The missus got headaches and a great big bum
Took her Brian Ferry albums and headed for the sun
Now the CSA are after five figure sum
Yes, the boy has become the man

Now I’m fiftysomething with a new lease of life
Hey I’m really grown up now
So I’ve gone out and bought a Yamaha motorbike
Hey I’m really grown up now
I’ll relive my youth, give her full welly
With a pair of tight leathers to hold in my belly
Do I feel a pratt? no not on your nelly
For the boy has become the man

Now I’ve drawn me pension and I walk with a stick
Hey I’m really grown up now
Into second childhood I slowly drift
Hey I’m really grown up now
Senility rules , incontinence is bliss
Moaning all the time, just a grumpy old git
Maybe if I reach 100 I may well yet
See the child become the man

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 04:34 AM

Eastbourne Viagara Blues

(Sung as fastish 12 bar)

Well, I woke up this morning,
With a twinkle in my eye,
Well I woke up this morning, spring in my step, glad to be alive,
Though I was 92 last week, doctor gave me these pills
Which made me feel like I’m 25.

No more afternoon naps now, Doris
No more gentle strolls along the prom.
No more moaning about the price of things,
No more playing bowls from this moment on,
Cos I’m a testosterone fuelled rocket
Ugh!!!I’m a sex machine so turn me on

Gonna head on down to Eastbourne ,Doris,
Like that Bionic Man , I’ve been remade
Gonna head on down to Eastbourne, Doris,
Where everyone is 80 in the shade,
Though they call it the Costa Geriatrica, those passionkiller Marks and Spencers knickers ain’t gonna stop me getting my wicked way!

No more of them toasted teacakes
Wave goodbye to those buttered “scewnes”,
No more of them toasted teacakes now,
Say goodbye to those buttered “scewnes”,
(that’s how they say ‘scones’ in Eastbourne)
No more delicate bone china teacups,
Gonna spew up my 15 pints of rotweiler lager in the road.

Gonna throw way that zimmerframe, babe
I think I’m seeing red
I’m gonna listen to that sound of shattering glass
Gonna kick in someone’s head
‘Cos I shot a man in Brighton,
‘Cos he wouldn’t speak up so I could hear what he said..


Won’t you squeeze my teabag,
Till the juice runs down my chins,
Squeeze my teabag
Till that juice runs all down my chins,
Got that lead back in my pencil
And that zing back in my dingaling

Because my doctor’s given me these pills, now
Feel like I’m born again,
My doctor’s given me this Viagra pills,
Old John Thomas will rise again,
(ooh I say…)
So I’m off on my club 85/100 holiday,
Silver shaggers here we come.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 04:39 AM

Menopausal Men with Expensive Guitars

1.        He turned 55 with great expectations
His lady wife knew that he was hatching a scheme
Caught him playing air guitar with a tennis racket
Retired accountant gonna live the dream

He begged and he pleaded til she finally relented
Drove his car down to that music store
That top of the range Taylor was just the beginning
Now he’s got the bug and he just wants more

Menopausal Men (What’s the world coming to?)
Expensive Guitars( Gibson Takamine)
Menopausal men (it’s becoming an obsession)
Expensive guitars (where will it all end?)
See them everywhere in all the cafes and bars
Those Menopausal men with expensive guitars)

2.        Every night you’ll find him down the open mike,
With a poser hat and a pair of cool shades
Squinting at a tuner, running through the chords,
Waiting for his turn to get up on that stage

Wound up tightly like a coiled spring,
Soon he’ll be knocking on heaven’s door.
Words on a music stand in a big font,
‘Headin down the highway with his geetar.’

Menopausal Men (at least it keeps him out of mischief)
Expensive Guitars (howling down the mike)
Menopausal men (now he wants another one)
Expensive guitars((keeps him off the motorbike )
See them everywhere those budding suprerstars
Those Menopausal men with expensive guitars)

He badgered he pestered and got his first gig,
First step on the ladder to making it big
Now he’s thinking Glastonbury try hard to humour him
The new Bob Dylan, Neil Young or Leonard Cohen


3.        He’s written a song about a failed relationship
Guitars hanging up on every spare bit of wall
Combat trousers with 28 pockets
You’ve got to look the part if you want to walk tall.

Dashing from one open mike to the other
Popping up here, there and everywhere
Gets one of his mates to record it on his smartphone
Puts it on facebook for the world to share.


Menopausal Men (kids pretend they don’t know him)
Expensive Guitars (so cool and hip)
Menopausal men (now he wants a Lowden)
Expensive guitars((on an ego trip)
A wild desperado with a bus pass
Those Menopausal men with expensive guitars)


Menopausal Men (now he’s doing wagon wheel)
Expensive Guitars (too old for learning words)
Menopausal Men (Not bloody “Halleluyah”)
Expensive guitars (can he have more reverb)
It’s about time they were put out to grass
Those menopausal men with expensive guitars.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 05:33 AM

and finally it's Tom...

The Green Green Grass of Home

1.The old crowd looks the same, as I step out on the stage.
And there’s the roar of the same old fans to greet me,
Oh it’s Alice, Doris, Lily and Mary,
Skin a little wrinkly and chins a little hairy
They’ve all been put out to the green, green grass of home.

2. When they were maidens young and fair, they used to throw their underwear,
Upon the stage where I would strut my stuff so boldly
Now it’s only ladies of a certain age, who still try to throw their knickers on the stage,
But they’ve been put out to the green green grass of home

And those knickers hot and sweaty, they rained down like confetti,
And landed on the green green grass of home.

3. I used to use those knickers as a towel to wipe the sweat from off my brow,
And throw them back to the sound of all that screaming,
But nowadays I’m not so keen, because, after all, you don’t know where they’ve been,
It’s so sad to think of that green green grass of home.

4.Well you wouldn’t hear me complain, when those knickers fell like rain,
Though one or two had probably been weed in,
But nowadays before they start throwing , they’ve probably wet themselves without even knowing,
They’re out to graze on the green, green grass of home.

And those knickers hot and sweaty, they rained down like confetti,
And landed on the green green grass of home.

3. These days I move a little slower, my voice a little lower,
But as we all know things drop as we get older,
Some of those knickers won’t reach me, this I know,
They’ll only get as far as the second row,
And land there on the green green grass of home.

6. Oh, just like these ladies her, these are my twilight years,
And I suppose I’d better enjoy the time remaining
And no use pretending , though it’s sad,
Look out, here comes an incontinence pad,
It’s a health and safety issue on the green, green grass of home.


And those knickers hot and sweaty, they rained down like confetti,
As I sang of the green green grass of home.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Stanron
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 05:38 AM

How about this

Medication Blues
To the tune of Hesitation Blues

Doctor told me, hope it's a lie
You'll never get better till the day you die.

CHORUS Tell me how long do I have to wait?
Am I all right now or should I medicate?

Three pills in the morning, Two at night,
Another calms me down in case I don't get it right,

A capsule is a capsule, a pill is a pill
If complacency don't get me then anxiety will

I don't like the red ones, I don't like the blue (Double take at the audience)
I'm not so sure I like the look of you

I'm standing on the corner, I'm just not sure,
Am I looking for a lover, a dealer or a cure?

Friends come round, so they say
Just wanna get high on my Nitro spray

The Altzeimer verse (apologies for any offense)

Standing in the kitchen (Parlour, Rest room, Diner, stair well, bar room, etc) looking at the floor,
Just can't remember what I came here for.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 08:22 AM

Charlie Poole's 'Old and Grey & only in the way' would suit

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 08:50 AM

Can anybody remember the beautiful American song sung by a protest singer (now dead) who used to contribute to thus forum "They say that I'm All done up... washed up...
Would very much appreciate hearing it again
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 08:56 AM

The other day I saw a young man of about 25 singing a self-penned story about how he wished he were still young. 'Hardly out of short trousers' was my comment. Then I was told that nowadays they don't do that short trousers into long trousers thing any more.

Menopausal men with expensive guitars. Owch! Too near the knuckle to attempt in public. Nicely observed. Ear-ring in one ear as another detail?

What about

They think they look sexy with the new guitar
But a mere phallic symbol won't get them far.
When it comes down to it, their ding-a-ling
Is in deep need of a set of new strings.

Love the Hesitation Blues!

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 12:15 PM

Re the young man of 25 - remember this old classic:--


Barry Mann - Teenage Has-Been

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 12:38 PM

A couple that the late Iain Mackintosh used to sing:
Waltzing around in the Nude, and
(Can't remember the title) a song that started at death, then worked back through old age, pension age, middle age, young married, pre-married, teenage years, boyhood, babyhood and finally back in mother's womb!

Ian McCalman has one about being reasonably accepting of reaching sixty.

And, Jim Carroll, is the "All Used Up" song way up the thread, Feb 01, the one you want? Very powerful song. The late John Wright also sang it.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Peter the Squeezer
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 12:41 PM

This from Paddy Roberts

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

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 12:53 PM

This one
Jim Carroll

ALL USED UP

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 04:24 PM

By implication, Bonnie Bessie Logan... "ower young for me"...

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 06:10 PM

We seem to have missed good old Tom Lehrer's "When You Are Old and Gray".

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 06:25 PM

How could I have forgotten this one!!

From Burns's 'Merry Muses of Caledonia
Jim Carroll

WAD YE DAE THAT?
Gudewife, when your gudeman’s frae hame,
Micht I but be sae bauld,
As come to your bed-chaumer,
When winter nichts are cauld;
As come to your bed-chaumer,
When nichts are cauld an wat,
An lie in your gudeman’s steed,
Wad ye dae that?

Young man, an ye should be sae kind,
When oor gudeman’s frae hame,
As come to my bed-chaumer,
Where I am laid my lane;
An lie in oor gudeman’s steed,
I will tell you what,
He fucks me five times ilka nicht,
Wad ye dae that?

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 06:41 PM

Jim, yes, that's the song, All Used Up: glad you found it.

The un-named one I mentioned that Iain Mackintosh used to sing is called "Run the Film Backwards" and is also here on YouTube:
Run the Film Backwards

And here is:
"Pleasantly Pleased to be Sixty" by Ian McCalman

I am pleasantly pleased to be sixty
Astounded that I've lived so long
I had a great time till I reached fifty-nine
I thought that was it, but I'm wrong
It's not at all bad to be sixty
And frankly I'm doing OK
Apart from the sight in my mirror at night
There are no other signs of decay
Delighted to wake up each day

I accept all the gifts l I'm given
My heating, my bus pass and all
I really don't care, but if it is there
I'll take it no matter how small
I can be just as ill as I want to
And Google my symptoms with glee
I can do a sore back or a mild heart attack
Or die, if I want to, for free

It's my job to annoy younger people
Like, "How old do you think I am?"
They tell me I'm mad and I tell them they're bad
But frankly I don't give a damn
And I never drive above 30
No matter the limits or signs
It's amazing how slow my Toyota can go
With an angry Mercedes behind
Sometimes it's cruel to be kind

I am pleasantly pleased to be sixty
I'm far from the end of the line
There's so much to do and there's so much to do
And I'll do it, 'cause I have the time
It's not at all bad being sixty
But one thing is bothering me
My memory's gone and I can't finish songs..................

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: reggie miles
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 02:05 AM

I'm Old
by Reggie Miles ©2016 All rights reserved

I'm old, yes I'm old, and I found out today
My tired old frame just gets in the way
So I guess I'll move on and try to find me some place
Where a man can grow older and die with some grace

I've done so many things with the times of my life
I courted an beauty and I made her my wife
I found a good job and then we settled down
Bought a small house on the outskirts of town

I raised a fine family. Shall I tell you their names?
There's Johnny and Mary and Annie and James
But now they've all gone and I'm bent from the wear
With withered old limbs and grey shaggy hair

I'm old, yes I'm old, and I found out today
My tired old frame, just gets in the way
I'm off on my own, after all of these years
Filled with laughter and love and sadness and tears

The American Dream, I've lived it you see
Spent all of my life in this land of the free
I've leveled her mountains and raped her great plains
Damned mighty rivers and poisoned her rains

I've reaped vast wealth, by polluting her soil
I've spoiled her oceans, by spilling her oil
There's not a fish in the sea, nor a bird in the air
That hasn't suffered or died while under my care

I'm old, yes I'm old, and I realized today
My time round here hasn't all gone way
I have no balance in this worldly place
Only struggles and strife over faith, wealth, and race

I have fought mighty battles and wars by the score
I've left millions to starve and ignored the poor
Destruction and death have been my legacy
In the wake of such hate, who cares about me

I've left no solutions only more of the same
No comfort I've given to ease anyone's pain
My words have been lies, my heart's been a stone
I guess it's befitting that I die all alone

I'm old, yes I'm old, and I've naught left to do
But to say my goodbye and farewell to you
And if I should ever pass this way again
I'll try to do better with my time spent here then

Here's a link to the song...

https://www.reverbnation.com/reggiemiles/song/25649864-im-old

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: reggie miles
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 02:21 AM

Grossosity! Reggie Miles written © 2004

Bats flutter in my belfry when I’m dreamin’ in my bed
I’m guessin’ they got in there through these holes here in my head.
I’d like to shed this feelin’ that some day I’ll wake up dead.
I’ve tried a frontal lobotomy and every remedy bottle in front of me.
But nothin’ that I’ve tried has helped this dread.
Sooo! I just cry myself to sleep each night instead.

A big belly full of bicarb bathes a blisterin’ boil,
That bubbles when my troubles begin to foil and uncoil.
This royal pain in th’ gut is due to one unloyal goil.
So I sit and slowly slurp another sip of castor oil.
OOOH! And I play solitaire in solitude with Hoyle.

I collect belly button lint but it doesn’t smell so nice.
So I use a mint deodorant and wash it twice or thrice.
And just in case you’re thinkin’ that this vice ain’t very nice.
My freezer’s full of fresh and minty little linty balls of ice.
OOOH! I keep ’em free from lice as linty balls of ice.

Green and crusty boogers they reside inside my nose.
Those slimy sinus stalactites clog my nasal breathin’ holes.
And there’s fungus here among us growin’ twixt ten smelly toes.
And the stink’ll make you think it must be time to change your hose.
OOOH! The stench’ll curl your nose hairs heaven knows.

Earwax slowly trickles down my eerie ear canals.
And toe jam jams the crevices of all my toenail pals.
An avalanche of dandruff boulders showers down upon my shoulders,
And my doctor nods and jots another note inside my folder.
OOOH! And his nurse says I’ll get worse as I get older.

Halitosis haunts my speech and my cornfusional orations.
As my teeth decay and rot away from cavity excavations.
Puss filled acne polka dots my face. Pimples are poppin’ up everyplace.
I’m a disgrace as an example of the human race.
OOOH! It looks like I may be a hopeless case.

Unspeakable odors waft up from down below.
They breezily squeeze with ease between my knees as they flow.
Whiff my pungent armpit aroma, and you will end up in a coma.
You’ll be longin’ for the pleasant scent of ol’ Tacoma.
OOOH! You’d rather have a squirtin’ skunk inside your home. AHHH!

Two bloodshot orbs gaze back at me when in the mirror I stare.
A wrinkled road map decorates the face that’s gawkin’ there.
Soon my receding hairline’ll leave my head completely bare.
I don’t know why I bother livin’ when this life is so unfair.
OOOH! Now applaud and pretend you even care.

Here a video of me performing this one live at GrangeStock IV Grossosity!

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: BobL
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 02:40 AM

Joe F, we haven't missed out on Tom Lehrer - see 07 Feb 01, 11:48 PM

Advantages of age (in the UK at least, for the first two):
1) Free prescriptions
2) Free bus travel
3) Your time's your own
4) The world seems to be increasingly filled with young and beautiful people.

And do not the T-shirts of the very same people who once advocated Teen Power, now proclaim that Old Guys Rule?

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 07:31 AM

When I'm 64. The Beatles.    This was mentioned before but here it is on Youtube.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 07:43 AM

When I'm 64 not much use at a certain age!

I'm at the age when I wonder if I'll live long enough to get a bus pass or a state pension: they keep putting the ages up.

The T=shirt I want is one that says 'I may be old, but I got to see all the best bands'. But they don't do long sleeve for women. Soz, this isn't a 'T-shirts about getting older thread'.

Hmm. Well, they probably still do! :)

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 08:25 AM

"Jim, yes, that's the song, All Used Up: glad you found it."
Beautiful song - still brings a lump...

I was always rather fond of Pete Mundey's song, 'Take Your Time" until I heard a Liverpool audience roar out
"Take your time, you dirty old man"

There are still places on the planet screaming out for missionaries!!
Jim Carroll

TAKE YOUR TIME
(by Pete Mundey)
Chorus
So take your time, me lovely old lad
Oh there ain't no need for to hurry
For as long as you're able to wind up me clock
Then I have no need for to worry.

You first wound me clock up on our wedding day
You promised t'would always be striking
Though the spring's getting weaker and feeble the tick
It's still very much to me liking.
Chorus

I mind the time when we were young
You worked at the hedgin' and dykin'
Oh you'd go out at dawn and work through till dusk
And come home for me clock to be strikin'.
Chorus

As time goes by, our children's grown up
We're soon making wedding vows binding
Oh I told all me daughters the one thing I've learned
Make sure your clocks always needs winding.
Chorus

And now that we're nearing the end of our days
And you are so tired and grey, love
It still pleases me so when you wind up me clock
And it will till the end of my days, love.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 06:12 PM

When I'm 64? Well past that now! 64 is the new 44! (or do I mean vice versa?)

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: open mike
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 11:36 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTeYD3Za_2Q    Memory Song
Tom Rush - Looking for My Wallet and Car Keys - Kerrville Folk Festival, 2015 (one message posted on another version of this says it was Steve Walters, who wrote and first recorded the song.?)

Subject: Lyr Add: GETTING OLDER EVERY DAY (Big Bill Broonzy
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Jul 18 - 02:44 PM

You can hear this recording at YouTube


GETTING OLDER EVERY DAY
As recorded by Big Bill Broonzy, 1940.

You say you're gettin' old; now, it' older ev'ry day.
You say you're gettin' old; yeah, you say you gettin' older ev'ry day.
Ah, you ain't but fifty. Hoo, Lord! Boy, you shouldn't feel that way.

Now when you get so old you can't work at no mill,
Yeah, when you get so old, now, boy, you can't work at a mill,
Now, don't you make no dates, hoo, Lord! But at that you can't fill.

Now, if your luck don't change, boy, don't you be sad.
Yeah, if your luck don't change, now, buddy, don't you be sad.
Now, you really gotta learn what you take the good now with the bad.

Now, when you get old and your good gal don't want you 'round,
Hoo, Lord! When you get old, and your good gal don't want you 'round,
Now, you know you didn't run out o' commission, hoo, boy! I declare you're poor-house bound.

Now, don't laugh, buddy; now, I didn't nobody's downfall.
Hoo, lawd! Don't laugh, buddy; I meanin' nobody's downfall;
Because if your woman would check up on you, hoo, Lord! She'd put another mule in your stall.

Subject: I wanna live to be an old woman - what's the rest!
From: GUEST,Petrawiggin
Date: 31 May 19 - 10:47 PM

Help! I am looking for the full lyrics to a song that I can't find anywhere except that there is a small reference to it in this thread @GUEST.winterbright, mentioned it. Here is what I remember of the song:

I want to live to be an old woman and old woman and old woman,
I want to live to be an old woman sittin' on the porch!
I want to live to be an old woman shawl around my shoulders, gum a piece of chicken,
I want to live to be an old woman sittin' on the porch!
I want to live to be a deep sea diver, a parachute jumper and an old woman,
sittin' on the porch and laughing at the sunset, diggin' my new home!

Does anyone know more of the words?!?!?!?

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: John C. Bunnell
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 12:05 PM

I am astonished at two omissions from Broadway:

"(You're) Timeless to Me" (from «i»Hairspray«/i»)
"No Time at All" (from «i»Pippin«/i»"

I won't try to do links from my phone, but possibly later....

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,G
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 04:36 PM

Burns"s "Wad Ye Dae That"
Jim Carroll--23/6/2018.
Lying in bed {where else} I composed a middle verse for the above song.

"Forsooth young man I wad be laith
Tae turn doon sic an offer
But tell me lad whit likes yer graith
And is it aa in order
Guidwife ye needna spier that gait
for it"s baith lang and fat
And made for your contentment dame
I"se warrant that.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: olddude
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 08:04 PM

One I wrote
https://youtu.be/nejTuZaWI-I

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: Leadbelly
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 06:14 PM

Curd Juergens, a well-known german actor, once recorded a song titled by "60 Jahre und kein bisschen weise" which means 60 years old and by no means being wise...

Subject: RE: Songs about getting older?
From: GUEST,Warwick Slade
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 04:31 AM

My getting old songs are on Spotify on the Live at Poole Crematorium albu
Check it out