Songs about old people?

"I'd Rather Be Dead"- Harry Nilsson

 

Neil Young: The Old Laughing Lady
Elton John: Talking Old Soldiers

 

"When I Was Young" - Eric Burdon & the Animals

 

Old Folks-Ronnie Milsap & Mike Reid
Hey Grandma-Moby Grape
BTW, it was Elmo & Patsy who did Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer

 

The best song to center your project around is definitely from Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends, both "Voices of Old People" & "Old Friends." I've never heard a more touching song about getting older.

-----------------------------------
Voices Of Old People (2:07)
(Art Garfunkel recorded old people in various locations in New York and Los Angeles over a period of several months. These voices were taken from those tapes.)

Man 1: I got little in this world. I give honesty without regret. One hundred dollars for that picture. I remember taking a picture with...

Woman 1: Ooh! Let me show you. Let me show you our picture. This was me and my husband when we were first married.

Woman 2: I always slept on one side, left room for my husband.

Woman 1: And that's me when we were sixteen.

Woman 2: But this, this, this, this is not the case. I still do it. I still lay on the half of the bed. (pause) We used to sneak in...

Man 2: Still haven't seen the doctor I was seein'; there's been blood for the last, eh, forty-eight hours, and I can't get up the mucus for the last, eh, two, three months... oh yes, and I maintain, I maintain strongly, to this minute, I don't think it's an ordinary cold.

Woman 3: God forgive me, but an old person without money is pathetic.

Woman 4: Children, and mothers, that's the way we have it. A mother-- they are [mumbling I can't make out].

Woman 5: 'Cause mothers do too much.

Woman 4: That is mother's life, to live for your child. (pause) Yes, my dear.

Man 3: I couldn't get younger. I have to be an old man. That's all. Well...

Woman 6: Are you happy here, honey? Are you happy living with us?

Man 3: So anytime I walk with Lou and... that's all.

Woman 6: Mr. Singer? Are you happy living with us here?

Woman 7: But we don't do that, dear.

Woman 6: But are you happy?

Woman 7: If you mean, if, if you could say, yes, and I thought, and I was so happy, and everybody, "What is this? What is it?"

Woman 8: It just is, beautiful. Like, just a room. Your own room, in your own home.

----------------------------
Old Friends (2:35)
Written by Paul Simon

Old friends
Old friends
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends
A newspaper blown 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 sunset
The sounds of the city
Sifting through the trees
Settle like dust
On the shoulders
Of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be seventy

Old friends
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fear...

 

Here is an excerpt from an interview with Art Garfunkel, where he is talking about the Voices track:

ST (interviewer): Bookends features "Voices Of Old People" which is not really a song but a sound painting. Was that your conception?

AG: Yeah. I wanted to set up the song "Old Friends. " And I wanted the actual sound of the old people on tape so you can feel what we're talking about before we sing something about old people. I actually wanted to get their coughs, their wheezes, their sighs.

It was really going to be a collage of gutturalisms, real earthy sounds in the back of the throat. Not so much what they were saying but their vocal production, to see if I could capture older people that way.
But we had wonderful quotes from all these interviews I had done. I went to old age homes...

ST: Did the people then know who you were?

AG: Yes. When they were real elderly, they dimly knew and didn't care. Actually, they didn't know. The lady who ran the place knew who I was and they would accomodate my interest and give me a nice serious treatment. The actual old people I spoke to, they were pretty old, so they didn't know who I was. So it was just a case of cooperating. And I would be the sophomoric interviewer asking them about life itself But they said wonderful stuff . .

ST: Did they know you were recording it?

AG: Yes.

ST: Did they have any understanding why you were doing it?

AG: Not really. No.

ST: You said the purpose of the piece was to introduce the song "Old Friends. " When you first heard that song did you have a sense that Simon was writing not only about old age out about the old friendship between you and he?

AG: Yes. I like that song a lot. I think he wrote a gem there. Sure, I did.

 

"hope i die before i get old"

 

Obsucre but interesting....

Let's see...

Old Hands - The Whites
The Old Folks Home - Vernon Oxford
The Old Ladies Home - Doc Williams

Weepers every one of them!

Best!

 

Isn't there a Hootie &Blowfish song called "The Old Man & Me" or something like that?

 

Great choice!

Jon Mark- "Old Peoples Houses" and "Carousel"
Rock and Hyde (Bob Rock and Paul Hyde, formerly Payolas)-Talk To Me

 

Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
Windows and Walls - Dan Fogelberg (Dan says his version of Eleanor Rigby)

 

Moody Blues - "Nights In White Satin" ("Senior citizens wish they were young")

Old Man Rivers - Beach Boys (bonus track from Friends/20/20 cd)

Still The One - Orleans



Don't know if this one qualifies but there's this song by the late, great Chet Atkins he wrote and sung about his dad, called "I Still Can't Say Goodbye" that is so touching, it's hard to listen to without watery eyes. He performed this song on his video, "Chet Atkins and Friends" and the camera panned the audience - not a dry eye in the house.

 

"Old Folks at Home," by countless artists (written by Stephen Foster, best known by its first line, "Way down upon the Swanee River...")

"The Old Man Down the Road" -- John Fogerty
"My Way" -- Frank Sinatra
"Reminiscing" -- Little River Band
"Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" -- Rolf Harris

 

Thanks Sergei! I had never before read that interview; it's wonderful.

Josh

 

Especially the Turtles version!

 

Pulp, 'Help The Aged'

Edit: and of course Anal C*nt, 'You're Old (**** You)'

 

A couple more (and I'll try to leave out the Freudian slips this time )

Faithless - Dirty old man
Jethro Tull - Aqualung

Andrew

 

Bradley said:

Thanks. I didn't have time to check allmusicguide.com this morning. Much appreciated.

 

Pink Floyd - "The Fletcher Memorial Home".

 

I've only read the first couple of pages of this thread so I don't know if someone has already mentioned


JIMI HENDRIX 51ST ANNIVERSARY

 

"Father And Son" -- Cat Stevens (Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy)

 

Touch of Grey – Grateful Dead

These two might work depending on what you are trying to convey in your project:

I Don't Wanna Grow Up – Tom Waits
Forever Young – Bob Dylan

 

'Me and the Major' - Belle & Sebastian from 'If You're Feeling Sinister'
'Bungalow' - XTC from 'Nonsuch'

Regards
13th Duke of Wymbourne

 

Cat's in the Cradle- Harry Chapin (well, it's about getting older anyway...)

 

Chuck Berry - "Too Pooped To Pop"

Wynonie Harris - "Sittin' On It All The Time"

The Kinks - "Waterloo Sunset"

John Mellencamp - "Minutes To Memories"

Drink Small - "I'm In Love With A Grandma"

Jimmy Witherspoon - "Past Forty Blues"