Old Man

Today has been super busy, starting with a little over an hour ride the indoor bike trainer at a fast pace, followed by a big lunch, then caring for one of our grandsons just for the afternoon. As has been our habit the last few weeks, my sweety and I took the little one to The Leaf, the new indoor conservatory in Canada’s Diversity Gardens at Assiniboine Park. It’s such a beautiful space, and today, with the sun shining bright, the tropical biome was hot and humid. It was lovely.

Then it was back to our son’s and, eventually, back home so I could take my road bike and gravel wheelset to the bike shop for pre-season servicing; this is a little optimistic since we aren’t in outdoor biking weather yet (I am not a winter cyclist though I know many who are). But when I made the appointment a month ago, I guessed we’d be farther along, weather-wise. Oh well… the authorities say a slow melt is good because it will spread out the timing of a large spring melt coming up the Red River from the USA and hopefully minimize flooding in Manitoba, though most of that will likely be south of where I live in Winnipeg, and our city is protected by a massive floodway.

And now, finally, sitting down to write my daily post, I quickly cruised through YouTube as I didn’t gain any ideas from the music playing today… well, other than one song, but that one will take a while to write about as it brought up some vivid memories of working at McDonald’s as a teenager.

While on YouTube, I discovered a video of Beck (aka Beck David Hansen, b. 1970) covering “Old Man,” a 1972 song by Canadian rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Neil Young (b. 1945). I like the version Beck does; it’s faithful to Young’s original, yet he puts his stamp on the song, too.

“One, two
One, two, three

Old man, look at my life
I’m a lot like you were
Old man, look at my life
I’m a lot like you were

Old man, look at my life
Twenty-four and there’s so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two

Love lost, such a cost
Give me things that don’t get lost
Like a coin that won’t get tossed
Rolling home to you

Old man, take a look at my life. I’m a lot like you
I need someone to love me the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes and you can tell that’s true

Lullabies, look in your eyes
Run around the same old town
Doesn’t mean that much to me
To mean that much to you

I’ve been first and last
Look at how the time goes past
But I’m all alone at last
Rolling home to you

Old man, take a look at my life. I’m a lot like you
I need someone to love me the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes and you can tell that’s true

Old man, look at my life
I’m a lot like you were
Old man look at my life
I’m a lot like you were”

“Old Man,” by Neil Young.
Lyrics retrieved from AZLyrics.com.

The song looks at old age from a young man’s perspective, acknowledging that the elder he’s addressing was once like him. That’s a fascinating concept to me; when I was, say, 24 like the young man in the song, I thought people in their 60s were very old, certainly incapable of going out and riding a bike for 75, 80 or more kilometres in a day, but I’m not sure I thought much about their youth. I view age much differently now, as people even older than me still cycle at an endurance level. And at the same time, we were once young too, doing all the things twenty-somethings do. I’m content with where I am, and I wouldn’t want to be that age again though I do like reminiscing about my younger years. I guess the perspectives on aging were really what appealed to me about the song this evening.

“Old Man” originally appeared as the first track on side two of Neil Young’s fourth studio record, Harvest (1972), and was written for the caretaker of the Northern California ranch Young owned. I previously posted Young’s “Harvest Moon,” the title track from his 1992 album, which he released as a “countrified” follow-up to the 20-year-old Harvest.

Beck released his version of the song as a single in September 2022.

Now you know a little about why this is my Song of the Day for Today. Thanks for joining me here.

Here’s the video of Beck from his YouTube channel:

With aged, youthful wishes,

Steve