Comments on: Old friends: how terribly strange to be seventy

By: Mrs Whatsit

Mrs Whatsit — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 12:58:40 +0000

“Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme” was the first record album I ever bought, when I was 12 or so. I bought it in a Grant’s store someplace in the D.C. suburbs; I think it might have cost me two or three dollars, brand new. (Remember Grant’s, that long-gone predecessor to Caldor, Ames, and finally Wal-Mart?) I was struck by the haunting, ethereal voices, the harmonies, and what seemed to me then the sophistication and worldliness of songs like “The Dangling Conversation.” (Don’t laugh. I was 12!)

A few years later I remember hearing them sing “How terribly strange to be seventy,” and thinking, well, of course it is strange, far too strange to imagine.

Now — well, time hurries on. I’m not seventy yet, but it isn’t so hard to imagine getting there any more. But M J R, that’s not necessarily so depressing. Think of the folks who didn’t make it to seventy, the ones who would have given anything to get grey hair and wrinkles in the mirror, celebrate a birthday with a cake too small to hold all those candles, hold a grandchild, or just sit on a bench with a good friend and remember.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 06:02:03 +0000

You forced me to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKG1HCoQ1LY&feature=related

By: Curtis

Curtis — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:28:53 +0000

I apologize as I am the world’s worst anaylst. But I could not let a fellow make quite the conclusion you did regarding getting old, which is a privilege and no harm. I figured something must have arrested the joy of aging, the joy of becoming perfect wine.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:25:42 +0000

carl in atlanta: I ain’t gonna take S&G’s word for what the song’s about!

I went to the Wiki entry to see what you were referring to, and it just says there that the song was written after JFK’s assassination. I’m not sure that means it’s what it’s about, though. There’s really nothing in the lyrics that suggests it.

By: M J R

M J R — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:56:48 +0000

Curtis:

I don’t seem to be tuned in, but I certainly appreciate the thought. I will continue to ponder. Thank you.

M J R

By: Curtis

Curtis — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:47:44 +0000

M J R: these words are for you.

I have found a way because of you:
when the way required much of me.
but for you, I could not, would not be.

Though I have gone, I have not forgot,
love expressed in your eloquent eyes.
See me, Love, in each and new Sunrise.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:24:19 +0000

Meanwhile, there is a simple, muscular, and powerful antidote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnztMhtUF6o

Thank God for the fine arts!

By: Curtis

Curtis — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:16:46 +0000

Yep, carl, crazy stupid and completely subjective lyrics as the later “musicians” discovered can be foisted on a crazy stupid and completely subjective (subjugated) cowherd:

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/red+hot+chili+peppers/give+it+away_20114705.html

(Hint: Go to the ending for the big give away.)

By: Deeka

Deeka — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 01:17:06 +0000

My Teenage girlfriend and I would sit and listen to S&G in her parents (nicely appointed) basement and be all romantic ans $hit. It was the best of times.

By: carl in atlanta

carl in atlanta — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:36:27 +0000

I will say that if you are of a certain age, you will have had an almost Kerry-esque “seared-in” memory of where you were the first time you heard Sound of Silence. I certainly do. I was 15 years old in 1966, in a record store at Lenox Square here in Atlanta. It was haunting then, it’s haunting now. I had no idea until just now (when I checked Wikipedia) that it was about the JFK assassination. For me that kind of ruins it; heretofore I had always thought it was just a heavily existential, Zen-like piece. Odd how a mere 10 years’ age difference makes on the human scale: I was just a teenager digging a cool tune. These guys were already old enough to be doing politics…. It always comes down to the politics; I wonder why that is? Tribalism or sheer animalism?