Songs about getting really old? - 1

Subject: Songs about getting really old?
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 11:44 AM

This is a companion ("cf. Old Friends, Simon and Garfunkel") to the other thread "Songs About Getting Older" asking about songs relating to those who are getting somewhat older. Does anyone have any good songs -- uplifting, depressing, gruesome, sweet -- about the really aged? It is scary to think that the Beatles "When I'm Sixty-Four" might be in this category, but they were in their twenties, what did they know? Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: S.P. Buck Mulligan
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 12:39 PM

Peter: I have a few for you: "Hello In There" by John Prine, "The Dutchman" by Mike Smith, and "The Old Folks" by, I think, Jacques Brel (not 100% sure on this attribution). The prine has been recorded by Bette Midler of course, but Prine's own rendition is far superior. The Mike Smith tune was sort of a signature of Steve Goodman's, appearing on one of his earliest albums. The only recording of "The Old Folks" I've heard is by HJ Dutschendorf on none of his "pre-Country Boy" LPs.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Harold
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 01:19 PM

Peter, the Beatles sung "When I get older.." and not "When I get really old" ! Then you would be right.
I remember parts of the Dubliners´ "Now I´m Easy", about a man who IS really old, or at least feels really old. "It´s nearly over now, and now I´m easy...". It´s a very haunting song of hard times in Ireland in former times.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 02:13 PM

"Over the Hills to the Poor House"..old country/bluegrass number and "The Black Sheep"...(in the database)...songs about what is done with the old...

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Alice
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 02:30 PM

There are "Silver Threads Among the Gold" (in the DT) and "Darling Nellie Gray", "The Picture on the Wall", "Long, Long, Ago", "Grandfather's Clock", "You're As Welcome As The Flowers in May" (I saw my daddy old and grey, I heard my dear old mother say,), "Are You Tired of Me Darling", "After The Ball" (A little maiden climbed on an old man's knee, begged for a story...), "Bring Back to Me My Wandering Boy" (tell him that his mother with faded cheeks and hair, at the old home is waiting him there...).
I didn't check the first thread on aging to see if I am repeating here, guess I should have done that before typing all of this in. Interesting topic. Alice in Montana

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Coralena
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 03:36 PM

"That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine" by Gene Autry

A very touching song, if you love your Daddy this one may make you cry.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 04:49 PM

Steve Goodman and Jerry Jeff Walker both wrote wonderful songs with the same title, "My Old Man."
Not folk songs, but "The Living Years" by Mike and the Mechanics is worth a close listen. "Leader of the Band" by Dan Fogelberg always makes me think of my dad, who nowadays doesn't sing as much as he used to.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 04:57 PM

Great Songs. (the real Buck Mulligan? We are honoured) Another Jacques Brel (his best) "Chanson des Vieux Amants".

Harold, any lyrics to "Now I'm Easy"?

I guess "Angel From Montgomery" is also an old person's song.

An e-mail from a friend who notes (while recommending "I'm So Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" from Gigi) that Sophocles is reputed to have said, "At last I do not feel those terrible fires." He was 90. Yours, Peter

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 05:01 PM

Many of the songs in the "Time & Changes" chapter of the "Rise Up Singing" songbook have to do with aging, but I don't have time today to type any. One I like especially is "The Activity Room (Mrs. Abrams)," by Ruth Pelham. Ronnie Gilbert did a great job with this song on the "Lifeline" album she recorded live with Holly Near in 1983.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 05:05 PM

Oh!! Another great one,,,it's in the database.."Didn't I Dance"

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Frank Phillips
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 05:46 PM

The chorus posted by Harald sounds like the Eric Bogle song about the Australian farmer called "Now I'm Easy" which is in the DT.

Might there be another song by this name?

Frank

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Harold
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 06:04 PM

Well, as far as I remember:

For nearly 60 years,I´ve been a cockey

I married a fine girl, when I was twenty
My wife died when giving birth, when she was thirty
No flying doctor then, just a gentle old black gent
But It´s nearly over now, and now I´m easy

She left me with two sons and with a daughter
And a bone dry farm, which soil cries out for water

me daughter married young and went her own way
me sons lie buried near the Burma Railway
But it´s nearly over now, and now I´m easy

Oh, what have I done? I´m ready to submit only fragments of a song. I thought, I would have more of that song in my mind. To my excuse: It´s some time ago, that I´ve heard it. But the fact that I remembered at least a little bit showes, that the song is worth it. Bye the way: The Dubliners sang it on their 25th years celebration album. There´s also a songbook containing the songs of that record.
Sorry for my insufficient memory, Harald ^^^

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Harold
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 06:09 PM

Hey what´s the heck is going on here? I first searched the DT before making a fool out of me with submitting these fragments, but didn´t find it. Now I´m looking up something else and what do I see: Now I´m Easy !!!
Well, it´s after midnite here, perhaps I should go to bed now.
See ya tomorrow folks, good night to everybody,

Harald

Subject: Lyr Add: GET UP AND GO (partial lyrics)
From: Robert Lee
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 06:14 PM

A great song done by Pete Seeger on the Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie Live at Carnegie Hall album:

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.

I wake up each morning and dust off my wits,
Pick up the paper, and read the obits.
If I'm not there, I know I'm not dead,
So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.

...there's lots more, but that's all I remember.

Robert Lee

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: alison
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 06:25 PM

HI

Now I'm easy is about Australia.

The words are in the dfatabase but just to correct what was said up above, it goes....

No flying doctor then, just a gentle old black gin, (Aboriginal woman.)

Come on Alan of Oz, give them the other version........

Slainte

Alison

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Carl
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 06:38 PM

Hi Alison,
As this thread went via Now I´m easy directly to Australia, I waited for you to respond, and there it is.
But could also be Ireland. Only the hint of the Burma Railway and the black gent/gin showed clearly that it´s Australia-originated. Some songs sung in Ireland come from Australia, like one of my favourites "Waltzing Matilda".

Well, there´s no particular message in this answer, I know. Just wanted to have a little chat, and the chat-room is always empty...

Slan go foill, Carl

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 07:03 PM

Wherever it is from, a good song. Must find the record, before I get too old....Yours, Peter

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Moira Cameron
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 08:56 PM

There's a couple of humourous songs sung by the late David Parry that come to my mind. One is a song called "Greezy Mac" about an older man who consideres himself a 'bar-maid connoiseur'. The other one is (I believe) a Robert Service poen that David put to music called "I wish I was eighty again." Actually, Robert Service wrote quite a few poems about getting old or being old; some of them funny, some not.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Pauline Lerner
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 10:19 PM

A bunch of them, with different moods, come to mind: 1. Hats Off to Old Folks, by Schooner Fare, is actually upbeat. 2. Sailor's Rest, by Stan Rogers, is depressing. 3. Saltwater Farm, by Schooner Fair, is about unfulfilled dreams of an old man. 4. Eileen Aroon, by Trad., addresses aging of a pretty woman. 5. Eyes of a Painter, by Kate Wolf, is a kind, loving portrait of Grandpa.

Subject: Lyr Add: GET UP AND GO (additional lyrics: Walden)
From: rich r
Date: 06 Oct 97 - 11:10 PM

"My Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Went" words Public domain and tune by Pete Seeger is in the database. In Pete's book (Where Have All The Flowers Gone) he relates the story of how he found the words on the back of a restaurant menu in Wisconsin and since has found evidence that it goes back at least to WW1. He also includes an alternative last verse and chorus that was went to him by Eleanor Walden.

I get up each morning and dust off my wits,
Open the paper and read the obits.
If I'm not there, I know I'm not gone,
So I eat a good breakfast and plan to go on.

For life is a blessing and love is a hope.
There's too much to do now to sit here and mope,
So I tie my Adidas and answer the call.
I'll die in the struggle or I won't die at all.

How do I know I'm ready to fight?
My get up and go is still within sight.
In spite of my body, my spirit is strong,
And I'm passing the torch from the old to the young.

rich r

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Barry
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 01:02 AM

Now I'm Easy is from Eric Bogel, who wrote it (or so he says) after spending some time in a bar with an elderly gent who proceeded to tell his life story to Eric's willing ear. He then says after the story was finished he ran outside, behind the bar & jotted it all down as was related to him & it became song. Moore's "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms" & Dave Van Ronk's "Another Time And Place" are a few charmers. Barry

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 01:42 AM

I'm thinking of "Run the Film Backwards" by Sydney Carter, which I've heard sung by Iain MacKintosh on his album _Gentle Persuasion_ (Greentrax/ TRAX014) about getting younger and younger. It starts out "At the grand old age of eighty-seven, they took me from the coffin," and runs a life in reverse until he becomes a very young boy and "Mother means the world to me and soon I'll be inside her."

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Wolfgang (Hell)
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 03:32 AM

What comes to my mind is the beautiful "Joy of living" (it is in the database) by the then quite old Ewan MacColl.
What also comes to my mind is the quite nasty "When you are old and grey" by Tom Lehrer (also in the DTDB)
Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: alison
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 08:36 AM

HI

What about the beautiful, (if depressing) Kilkelly, which I'm sure is in the database. About the old man's letters to his son.

Faals into my songs to slash your wrists to category, (along with Now I'm easy), but a great song nevertheless.

Slainte

Alison

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 01:13 PM

Check out @age or @aging (or, better yet, @ag*) in the database.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 01:17 PM

Hi again- Just checked. The Digital Tradition database lists 99 songs dealing with age or aging. A start, at least.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Bill in Alabama
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 03:54 PM

There's always "Old and In the Way." I'm sure that it's in the DT.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: S.P. Buck Mulligan
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 04:33 PM

I wouldn't be surprised if "Chanson de vieux amants" is in fact the same song Denver recorded in translation as "The Old Folks." but that's only a suspicion. I'd forgotten about "Angel" - it is indeed about growing old ("I am an old woman ....")

Not the real Buck (but I qualify for the "Plump" part; "stately"'s a judgment call though.)just a Joyce fan. Was once in a band, and we spent an entire evening (and several jugs of E&J's best) thinking up names. "Buck Mulligan Band" got the nod, and as I was in front, I was often mistaken for "Buck."

What about Kristofferson's great "Casey's Last Ride?" It's not strictly about getting old, I guess, but about maturing out of a relationship.

Or "Are You Tired Of Me, My Darling" which I think dates to the 1830s (Nanci Griffith did a smashing job on "Other Voices ..." with Chet atkins on acoustic 6 string. "Tecumseh Valley" by Townes van Zandt on the same disc is kinda about getting old (and then stopping getting older)

Stan Rogers did a nifty job with "Lies" though again, that's not about getting "Really" old, just getting on in years and on with life. On his "From Fresh Water" there's "The Last Watch" which deals with obsolescence, human and mechanical. I think that'd qualify.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Nonie Rider
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 04:46 PM

Yeah, I'd say MOST of Stan Rogers' songs are about getting older--as long as you include the aging and passing away of ships and jobs and ways of living.

Goddammit, I miss that man, and I never even met him.

Ever read Peter S. Beagle's THE FAIR FOLK? The main character is described by a friend as always mourning for things passing away, even if they haven't yet; always aware of what WILL pass.

--Nonie

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Bert
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 05:09 PM

Talking of old ships, my Dad sings a song called "Goodbye Old Ship of Mine"

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Peter T.
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 05:45 PM

Dear Buck, No, Chanson is a different song, more about the savage (and now not so savage) relationship between a man and a woman.

More good songs (I have never heard).

Dear Nonie, I think it was Orwell somewhere who talked about being at the tail end of traditions he didn't know were passing on until afterwards, when they became curiosities. Like reading, for example. Yours, Peter

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From:
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 07:12 PM

As I mentioned in the other thread, "Hello In There" by John Prine.

There is also that one that was a hit in the 1970's that began "Now I've been 'round for 80 summers . . ."

"Now I'm 64", the folksong, not to be confused with "When I'm 64" by the Beatles, which also qualifies.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Mark Pemburn
Date: 07 Oct 97 - 08:32 PM

Then there's "Rockin' Chair":

Rockin' chair done got me/ Cane by my side/ Hand me that gin boy/ Fo' I tan your hide

That's all I know of it. Hand me that whiskey, would ye?

Mark

Subject: Lyr Add: IT'S NOT EASY (Alan Foster)
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 04:51 AM

G'day,
Eric Bogle's "now I'm Easy" is actually full of Aussie references:-

cocky - Aussie slang for farmer

droughts & fires & floods - could be anywhere maybe, but applies particularly to Oz.

Flying Doctor - Royal Flying Doctor Service which brings medical help to people in outlying areas covering 2 million square miles and has been operating since 1927. Started by Rev. John Flynn (Flynn of the Inland) and Alfred Traeger who invented the pedal wireless which was used for many years by remote farmers etc.

gin (definitely not gent) - see Alison's post above.

And here's a parody:-

IT'S NOT EASY

by Alan Foster

For nearly sixty years I've been a folky
Of clubs and pubs and festivals I've seen plenty
And one day I'll make my name
And I'll find fortune and fame
But I've nearly made it now and it's not easy.

Well I learnt to play guitar when I was twenty
And I started writing songs when I was thirty
And I sang my songs one day
But the audience faded away
But I've nearly made it now and it's not easy.

Pretty soon I'm gonna record a great new album
Full of Aussie songs, it'll really be fair dinkum
Then one day and it won't be long
I'm gonna write the world's best song
But I've nearly made it now and it's not easy.

Teenagers today despise the folky
Say compared to rock'n roll folk songs ain't funky
They say your songs are much too long
They exceed our attention span
But I've nearly made it now and it's not easy.

For nearly sixty years I've been a folky
Of clubs and pubs and festivals I've seen plenty
And I'll sing my songs once more
To an audience of four
But I've nearly made it now and it's not easy.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Justin
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 11:08 AM

Good Alan. I heard Eric Bogle do his own parody for a sound check once in Princeton (NJ). It started, "For nearly 60 years I've been a jockey," and complained of saddle sores. A really good song that kind of goes with "Now I'm Easy" is Judy Small's (not on the database) ... now I can't remember the title, but it's chorus has "Sometimes I wonder if it all was worth the doin'...and some times I think this was the finest life of all". Priscilla Herdman recorded it on an early album. I'll get the words & submit them.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Bob Landry
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 12:01 PM

I was flipping through my "A" book last night and came across "Streets of London" by Ralph McTell. A poignant commentary on how our youth and money oriented society treats old people. It's in the database

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 07:14 PM

My own favorites (at least today) are The Good Boy and Silver in the Stubble. Both in the database.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: anna root
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 08:12 PM

An unusual one, and in the DT, is a version of "John Anderson, My Jo" where John's wife laments that

"John Anderson, my jo, John
When first that ye began
Ye had as good a tail-tree
As ony ither man
But now its waxen wan, John
And wrinkles to and fro
I've twa gae-ups for ae gae-down
John Anderson, my jo"

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Will
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 09:46 PM

Yes, Streets of London is great. It's in Rise Up Singing, too.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: dulcimer
Date: 08 Oct 97 - 10:33 PM

Check out a song by the Carter Family, 1930, called The Little Log Hut in the Lane. It starts--

Mama says she don't want me cause I getting old.
'Fraid that I might freeze to death, the weather is so cold.\

--- on Rounder C 1066

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: TomG
Date: 09 Oct 97 - 03:06 PM

Besides "September Song", which I'm sure you know, there is "Younger than Spring" and "Once Upon a Time". I am 62 and I sing these around the campfire when called upon for "old folks' songs. If you don't know the lyrics or can't find them, e-mail me at [e-mail] and I'll send them or put them here.

Tom

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 09 Oct 97 - 09:10 PM

G'day,
To anna root I may be wrong but I think the bawdy version of John Anderson my Jo is a Robbie Burns version.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Whippoorwill
Date: 10 Oct 97 - 10:43 AM

Running the gamut from the sloppily sentimental to the sublimely ridiculous, there's "Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine," and from the '40s, "He's Too Old to Cut the Mustard Any More."

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN THIS OLD HAT WAS NEW
From: LaMarca
Date: 10 Oct 97 - 02:41 PM

Some others that fit, just off the top of my head:

WHEN THIS OLD HAT WAS NEW (trad, from Chris Foster)

I am a poor old man
Come listen to my song
Provisions now are twice as dear
As when that we were young
The poor are quite done o'er
We know this to be true,
But it was not so when Bess did reign
And this old hat was new,
When this old hat was new

I'll post the rest for the database next week when I can bring the correct words from home

Silver In the Stubble by Sidney Carter, in the DT here

In the Rare Ol' Times - Pete St. John's depressing song about Dublin's changes over the years. DT has it here (without an author listed, and some garbling of verses...)

Time Has Made A Change In Me - in the DT here

What's the Life of a Man? (in the DT here

Chorus: What's the life of a man, more than that of the leaves
A man has his seasons, so why should he grieve
Although in this life we appear fine and gay
Like the leaves we must wither and soon fade away

A cheery little ditty...

Generations of Change - old man reminiscing about the change in trades in Scotland over the years, by Scottish songwriter Matt Armor, in DT here

And how can we forget the oldest man (woman?) of all in
I Was Born About 10.000 Years Ago (in the DT as Just the Facts, Ma'am, Woody Guthrie's intertwining of 10,000 Years with Great Historical Bum!)

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From:
Date: 11 Oct 97 - 02:35 PM

Oscar Brand recorded "I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago". I have it on vinyl. (Whatever happened to him, anyway?)

Alison, "Kilkelly" must be one of the most depressing songs I've ever seen.

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Oct 97 - 08:08 PM

Oscar Brand did a couple of programs at local (Wash DC)libraries just a few months ago...I didn't go...but I guess he is doing ok...

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Alice
Date: 11 Oct 97 - 08:57 PM

dick.. I looked at the list under @age* and found some really touching gems like FARAWAY TOM, which I have never heard. Makes me want to find all the recordings Jean Redpath has ever done. Alice in Montana

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Oct 97 - 01:25 AM

I think I have 95% of everything she has ever recorded...never got tired of hearing her....heard her first in 1963.....checked out a record from the library....most are still available in some form....

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Doug Ramsey
Date: 12 Oct 97 - 06:15 PM

One of my favorite songs about growing old is "75 Septembers" by Cheryl Wheeler. The most accessible recording of it is on the Peter Paul and Mary lifelines album...

Subject: RE: Songs about getting really old?
From: Bruce
Date: 12 Oct 97 - 07:36 PM

Alan, Burns had nothing to do with the bawdy "John Anderson my Jo". The first version in DT, except for verse order and spelling is practically the same as that in 'The Masque', 2nd edit. 1768. Burns was then 9 years old. A version of five verses is in "Philomel', 1744, reprinted in the first volume of 'The Comic Miscellany,' 1756. The later version is also in other songbooks before its appearance in 'The Merry Muses of Caledonia' (1799), and appears with its tune in 'The Convivial Songster' 1782.