Monday 15 March 2021

Mid-Life Crisis Songs #63: People Get Old


 OK, hankies at the ready again.

(Although we're not supposed to have hankies any more, are we? I have a drawer full that I've not been allowed to use for the past 12 months.)

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a song by Lori McKenna about kids growing up that caused a couple of you to get something in your eye.

Well, here she is again... and this time, she's taking no prisoners.

Selected "highlights" follow...

Someone said, "Youth is wasted on the young"
I spilled every last drop of time that summer in the sun
My daddy had a Timex watch
Cigarette in his hand and a mouthful of scotch
Spinnin' me around like a tilt-a-whirl on his arm

I sat up right beside him in the cabin of that truck
Goin' thirty miles-an-hour down a side road talkin' 'bout the fish we caught
And I'm older now than he was then
If I could go back in time, I would in a second
To his beat-up blue jeans and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off

Daddy keeps busy in the aftenoons playin' cards by himself
And he shouldn't be shovelin' that first snow, but you know he won't take the help
Full of pride and love, he don't say too much but hell, he never did
And you still think he's forty-five and he still thinks that you're a kid
One day you'll find yourself sayin' the things that he said

You'll be walkin' down the hallway, turnin' off every light switch
When you twirl your kids in your arms
Before you know it, it won't take too long
They'll be runnin' off makin' a life just like you did

3 comments:

  1. Great song. Reminded me a little of "When You Are Old" by Gretchen Peters.

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  2. Oh boy - what are you doing to us? At 45 my dad was a machine, working hard, hillwalking, organising events in our village and 'putting in' his own garden (we all grew our own) as well as his own dad's and his father-in-law's. He was also a great dad, helping me with school projects and giving lifts whenever they were needed.

    Here's a funny thing - I wasn't there, but I watched a video of my mum's retirement 'garden party', and I didn't recognise the white-haired chap wandering round the grounds in the background. 'It's your dad,' I was told. It just didn't compute as in my head he was always 45.

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