Nobody wants to get old and have to stop doing some (hopefully not all) of the things we did when our bodies and minds were young. Ageing is a part of life. Death is a part of life. Immortality is something I've often thought about. Long-gone 20th Century film stars, TV entertainers and musicians have a kind of immortality, albeit one which they cannot personally enjoy. You can see Keith Moon of the Who in radiant, high-definition - rattling around his drum kit in 1970 playing Young Man Blues at the Isle of Wight Festival like it was happening This Very Moment. You can see Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek performing Light My Fire on the Ed Sullivan show in 1967 and feel their power and presence like It's Happening Right Now. You can hear John Coltrane performing Cousin Mary on vinyl, CD, download or streaming in living stereo - and it's like he never pegged out in 1967 aged just 40. You can see Natalie Wood in her prime, young and beautiful in Splendor In The Grass (1961) and fall in love with her even though she's been dead since 1981. You can watch Leonard Cohen (someone who was seemingly always old) giving one of his myriad, inciteful and wise interviews at any point in his long career and take his words as advice, sent to you personally - Just Now. You can watch John Lennon in black and white in A Hard Day's Night - being cheeky and 23 - and giggle at his witticisms (uncomfortably re-iterated from a script which was a clumsy compilation of His Greatest Quips Up To That Point).
You can watch Sid Vicious coming down the stairs, stumbling through My Way in a heroin haze in 1978 ... as long as we can see and hear them - they're never really dead. These days I am not the Fanatic Of Party™ I once was, as my three-score-and-rising Earth: Skin, Bone and Muscle Suit suffers for many days and hours after any toxic ingestions or irregular exertion - and lack of sleep will cause anxiety and all manner of aches and pains. Existential Dread now dominates where once a shrug and another slug would parry all enemies of contentment.
Until they work out the details of how to keep us alive and untarnished for a lengthier innings (although paying for the brief time we have is tough enough) this is what we are. Maybe it's for the best. I mean ... Who Wants To Live Forever?
16) We're Never Gonna Grow Up
People can you hear me? People are you there?
We ain't gettin' younger, do you really care?
Something else ya can't do, one more door to close,
meet me at the tea dance, hear what I propose!
We're never, never, never, never,
never, never, never gonna grow up, up, up now, up, up, up,
up, up, up now, up, up, up,
we're never, never, never, never, never, never, never gonna grow up, up, up now, up, up, up, up, up, up now, up, up, up,
now people are you with me? People where you been?
I can still get it up, I just can't get it in,
goin' to bed early, like to prune a rose,
chasin' women half your age keeps you on your toes!
We're never, never, never, never, never, never, never gonna grow up, up, up now, up, up, up, up, up, up now, up, up, up, we're never, never, never, never, never, never, never gonna grow up, up, up now, up, up, up, up, up, up now, up, up, up, People can you hear me? People are you there?We ain't gettin' younger, do you really care? Something else ya can't do, one more door to close, meet me at the tea dance, hear what I propose!
Written by R.I.McNabb © Peermusic (UK) Ltd. 2020
Ian McNabb: Lead vocal, electric guitar, bass. Ciaron Bell: Clavichord. Backing vocals: Nancy and Willow Perkins. Alto saxophone: Bobby Bilsborough. Drums: Nick Kilroe.
