Home » The young-old—or is it the old-young?

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The young-old—or is it the old-young? — 30 Comments

  1. In music another example is Hank Williams who died at the age of 29. So he obviously wrote and recorded all of his songs in his mid to late 20s.

    ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ does not sound like it’s by a young person in either performance or subject matter.

  2. Furthermore, i wonder if this will still be true going forward.

    In 1965 my 35 year old mother sat in the car for three hours while my brothers and sister attended a Beatles concert because she was ‘too old’ for that kind of music. But now I can’t tell you how many people I see that are into the same types of music and entertainment as their teenage kids.

    Our cushy lives allow many to not mature til later if ever I think leading to much shallower and less introspective lives.

  3. Do you know “neotany”, Neo? You sure should.

    In evolution, it’s the retention of juvenile characteristics, into the adult phase.

    In Anthro, the famous example is the skull of a chimp infant, compared to that of an adult human.

    It’s important in individual development too, I would submit, though I can’t very well prove it scientifically.

    But I do know this: Toddlers have fairly routinely been identified as a “Little Old Man” or “Little Old Lady”, since waay back.

    Goes the same for other ‘types’, of course.

    The capacity to adapt, well into adulthood, to change your mind (even of things acquired in impressionable youth), is neotany at work.

  4. The bitter old person is so common as to be a cliche. The bitter old person is most often someone unwilling to accept the consequences of their earlier choices. Life, God and/or ‘the World’ did it to them.

    These songs highlight an all too rare willingness to fearlessly look in the mirror;
    “Yesterday, When I Was Young”

    “Margaritaville”

    “Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame
    But I know it’s nobody’s fault…

    Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame
    Now I think hell it could be my fault…

    Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame
    But I know it’s my own damn fault

    Yes and some people claim that there’s a woman to blame
    And I know it’s my own damn fault”

    I also note that people who have lived faithful lives; whether to religious tenets or to reasoned principle, rarely exhibit bitterness.

    To sound old, a young person must internally be old. Tom Waits certainly qualifies. Just one look tells you that he’s never been very happy. To paraphrase; ‘He’s ridden himself hard and put himself away wet”.

  5. I actually restrain from the ad hominem. It’s a fallacy of logic if, IF, it’s a substitution for addressing a fellow debaters argument. But it ceases to be a fallacy of logic if the debater proves that he/she is acting in bad faith.

    Neo, do you have sister who might want to date a slightly abused and bruised old Sailor? Or if not a sister a cousin? I can make pancakes and pasta and really good steaks.

    You have to test it on the palm of your hand. Does the steak fee tender. Jeexix people how many times do I have to mansplaine this.

  6. How S((( Happens
    In the beginning there was the Plan.
    And then came the Assumptions.
    And the Assumptions were without form.
    And the Plan was without substance.
    And darkness was on the face of the Workers.
    And they spoke among themselves, saying
    “It is a crock of shit, and it stinks”.
    And the Workers went unto their Supervisors and said
    “It is a pail of dung, and none may abide the odor thereof”.
    And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying
    “It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none can abide by it”.
    And the Managers went unto their Directors saying
    “It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength”.
    And the Directors spoke among themselves, saying one to another
    “It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong”.
    And the Directors went unto the Vice Presidents, saying unto them
    “It promotes growth, and it is very powerful”.
    And the Vice Presidents went unto President saying unto him
    “This new Plan will actively promote the growth and vigor of this company, with powerful effects”.
    And the President looked upon the Plan and saw it was good.
    And the Plan became Policy.
    This is how s**** happens.

  7. Do you know “neotany”, Neo? You sure should.
    In evolution, it’s the retention of juvenile characteristics, into the adult phase.

    It is often attributed to the taming of wolves and the domestication of dogs and horses. Natural selection.

    Actually, the other way round. Taming is attributed.

  8. Taming is attributed.

    Yes … and of the self. Tamer and tamee.

    Jared Diamond denies though, that he defined humans as incapable of domestication.

  9. I thought humans were a great example of neoteny. We retain the big head, big eyes, playful disposition and relative hairlessness of childhood into adulthood compared to the other great apes

  10. These songs highlight an all too rare willingness to fearlessly look in the mirror;

    Geoffrey Britain: I love this insight about “Margaritaville,” though the narrator is still somewhat young. I assumed around 30.

  11. GB: I have no idea whether Tom Waits is bitter or not. I assume he works with personas. That low, growly, splintered voice didn’t emerge until his “Foreign Affairs” album where he intentionally took on an working-class/Beat persona.

    Here’s a song where he sang in a smooth, young man’s voice, on the album, *after* “Ol’ 55” and before “Foreign Affairs.” Most of that album is likewise.

    “Shiver Me Timbers”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eux2qnnslac

  12. Re: Young-old.

    How about Max von Sydow? It seems he’s played middled-aged/old guys since the sixties.

  13. My uninformed bet is Tom Waits is a happy person beyond the faux liberal despair.

    He saw plenty of other poets and singer/songwriters die on the vine. He made it. He lives, works and creates as he pleases. Is there a greater success in life?

  14. Then again, Ray Stevens in 1957, at 18:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WS4Jo_ih44

    And from 2011, 54 years later (when he had matured some, gotten some financial wisdom), at 72:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6TcpfBHlbs&list=RDJ6TcpfBHlbs&start_radio=1

    But while it’s hard for me to pick an absolute favorite, this one’s on the shortshortshortlist — from 1984, you do the arithmetic. :>))

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6TcpfBHlbs&list=RDJ6TcpfBHlbs&start_radio=1

  15. I thought this was an Eagles song – was covered by them the next year!

    I first remembering hearing Tom Waits in 1976:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPPtrqvHGEg&list=RDBPPtrqvHGEg&start_radio=1
    The Piano has been Drinking,
    on the album (with a great title track & line):
    Small Change (got rained on with own .38)

    Now I have to find the song with this line:
    Well “Tom, do this” and “Tom, do that”, and “Tom, don’t do that”,

    right, from: I can’t wait to get off work.

    Franks’ wild years
    was also a fine album. Plus he’s appeared in some films around then, 1986ish.

    Thanks for nice memories, again, Neo.
    Plus YouTube is easiest place to find most music I like, often w/o a video other than a still photo.

    At 69 now, he’s not yet so “old” — tho always “young old”.

    I wonder what he says on interviews now? He was pretty contrarian & cynical before, I’d guess he still is. But perhaps happy with family & kids, now?

  16. Reincarnation theory postulates that some souls retain a lot of their experience in the past lives in a new one.

  17. I never heard of Tom Waits, but his “The Piano Has Been Drinking” is surely not the one I remember. Tried tracking it down on UT, no joy. Somebody with a smooth voice. Don’t remember the instrumental accompaniment at all.

    I hope everyone finds this comment informative. :>)!

  18. The other one that always strikes me is Otis Redding. He sounded like his music was coming from a long life of failure and success, disappointment and good fortune, love and loss. He was 26 when the plane hit the water.

  19. Billy Joel’s Piano Man has a time worn, melancholy air about it, and was released when Billy Joel was only 24.

  20. Julie – did you try my link, above the title “The Piano Has Been Drinking”? My wife thought it was extra good because of the many, well-chosen pictures that went with the lyrics.

  21. Thanks, Tom. No, I hadn’t checked your link, but the gravelly voice is the same, so not what I remember. However, yes, the stills are entertaining. :>)

  22. Blues Traveler – Hook
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdz5kCaCRFM

    you dont know the dirty side of constructing music
    so the commentary wont reflect on whats going on
    it will reflect on what you imagine is going on

    which i guess is fine given that nothing leads to anything among such
    ok, the eception that proves the rule is that they will react to the message
    but do nothing to make it a different message… kill the messenger is easier

    and yes, there IS a dirty side to professional music and has to do with construction

  23. If the German branch of Antifa, which was started by the original German Communist Party (KPD) in 1932, is busy assembling bombs, what is the US branch doing?

    You know, the guys that beat up the nazis and turned them away from street conflict and to parlimentary conflict…. the same process was used by willi munzenberg to fund the end of the sustem, by “getting the capitalists to pay for the rope, make te gallows and man them”…

    Antifaschistische Aktion:

    The first German movement to call itself Antifaschistische Aktion was proclaimed by the German Communist Party (KPD) in their newspaper Rote Fahne in 1932 and held its first rally in Berlin on 10 July 1932, then capital of the Weimar Republic.

    tried to teach neo about the special words…
    in germany Rote was special… means RED… so Rote Zora the feminist terrorist group (which is why they love terrorists as kindred), planted bombs, among other things.. [at the time, the word League was used in the US, just as in Russia:Communism – England:Fabianism – UnitedStates:Progressives…

    There were several Nazi and anti-Nazi paramilitary groups. On the anti-Nazi side, these included the Social Democrat-dominated Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (formed in 1924), the Communist paramilitary and propaganda organisation Roter Frontkämpferbund (Red Front Fighters League or RFB, formed in 1924) and the Communist Kampfbund gegen den Faschismus (Fighting-Alliance against Fascism, formed in 1930).

    which was why the people of the austrian fellow being the Magyar fullfilling the Magyar Struggle, used the absense of men (by war then, by feminism now), to get people into office… their claiming lenin was 2nd only to the austrian, wasnt working in the streets…

    Antifaschistische Aktion was formed as a broad-based alliance in which Social Democrats, Communists and others could fight legal repression and engage in self-defence against Nazi paramilitaries

    now, here is the MOST interesting thing that NEO ignores….
    and right out in the open

    After the forced dissolution in the wake of the Machtergreifung in 1933, the movement went underground.

    Machtergreifung = Seizure of power

    then when the roaches were ended, the waterbugs came out
    Groups called “Antifaschistische Ausschüsse”, “Antifaschistische Kommittees” or “Antifaschistische Aktion”, all typically abbreviated to Antifa, spontaneously re-emerged in Germany in 1944, mainly involving veterans of pre-war KPD, KPO and SPD politics,

    Since the 1980s
    they make this claim (which is complete BS!!!!!)
    Contemporary Antifa in Germany “has no practical historical connection to the movement from which it takes its name, but is instead a product of West Germany’s squatter scene and autonomist movement in the 1980s”

    The American Antifa of the early 21st-century has drawn its aesthetics and some of its tactics from the original German organization.

    NOW WHY BRING THIS UP? WHAT ARE THEY DOING NOW?

    German far-right MP Frank Magnitz badly hurt in Bremen attack
    YOU will hear two stories… one of a lone single convict, another that three antifa were involved
    The leader of Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Bremen was attacked by at least three masked men in the centre of the northern city on Monday. The attackers knocked him unconscious with a piece of wood and kicked him in the head, AfD officials said.
    Police release CCTV of an attack on German MP Frank Magnitz
    https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-46843821/police-release-cctv-of-an-attack-on-german-mp-frank-magnitz

    what else are they doing?
    AfD party offices bombed

    German Antifa members were caught in Mrch last year in an undercover police sting operation in Thuringia, where they were stockpiling chemicals and high explosives in what was described as a “mobile bomb factory”.
    [IF not agianst their own countrymen then who?]

    AfD’s Björn Höcke faces probe for posting photo of murdered woman

    State lawmakers have agreed to lift the parliamentary immunity of regional leader of the far-right AfD, Björn Höcke. The politician is accused of using photos of a victim of a murder for his own political ends.

    [who killed her did so for political ends, and that i guess, is ok]

    Sophia Lösche, a 28-year-old female student and pro-migration activist went missing while cycling from Leipzig to her hometown Amberg in the Upper Palatinate (German: Oberpfalz) where she never arrived

    On 29 June 2018, the German public prosecutor’s office and police in Bayreuth announced that her remains had been found in Asparrena in northern Spain and identified using DNA tracing

    SEE Also:
    Kayla Mueller – American activist and aid worker abducted by ISIS and later killed.
    Rachel Corrie – American activist killed while trying to block an Israeli armoured bulldozer.
    Pippa Bacca – Italian peace activist raped and murdered in Turkey.

    [there is a long long list… ]

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