How Terribly Strange To Be Seventy, part I

Why is all (well, almost all) pop music about being young and sad or young and partying? Seems a bit superficial to me and, on a more universally individual note, quickly dated. What if you find your love (or money, or ..., depends on what you're running low on), or the party's over, ah, what then? How Terribly Strange To Be Seventy will be the list to show you 'what then': a collection of beautiful songs loosely based on the 'old age' theme. Please add to this list!

The first one is 'Old Friends' and 'Bookends Theme' by Simon & Garfunkel, from which the title of this post is derived. Notable detail: it is said that Art Garfunkel himself is now 67, almost there..

Old Friends

Old friends, old friends sat on their parkbench like bookends
A newspaper blowin' through the grass
Falls on the round toes of the high shoes of the old friends

Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sun
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settles like dust on the shoulders of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today,
sharing a parkbench quietly
How terribly strange to be seventy

Old friends, memory brushes the same years,
silently sharing the same fears


Bookends Theme

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories; They're all that's left you