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Life: The Musical – Act 15: Growing Old

The Story
Life: The Musical is an original aFa production is a journey featuring songs of about life. Each act features an aspect of life as a theme with music supplied around that theme.

Program (Past Posts)
LifeTheMusicalAct 1: Life
Act 2: Born
Act 3: Names
Act 4: Young
Act 5: Dream
Act 6: Teens
Act 7: School
Act 8: Adulthood
Act 9: Work
Act 10: Play
Act 11: Hope
Act 12: Love
Act 13: Positive Emotions 
Act 14: Negative Emotions

Act 15
Life … the time for the living to live. One’s life starts when one is born. Shortly thereafter, we are given something that stays with us no matter where we go – a name. Immediately, we are nourished, so we grow physically, mentally, and emotionally from babies into young children … and that’s when we start to dream about our future life. Growth never stops, so from children we move on as teens .. but school is still much of life at this point.

Eventually, we move into adulthood as women and men with many things going on in our life. Whether its work, play, or family, life can be complicated, so many times we hope for the best. Maybe above all else, people desire love, and go through many ups and downs in that quest.

No matter the situation, human encounters also provide a wide-range of emotions over a life with ups and downs. Whereas the previous act featured positive emotion, Act 14 is about negative emotions – so, all song titles must have a negative emotion in the song title. (The producers says stay away from love unless the title is a negative emotion.)

Time marches on. Although one gets older with each day, one grows old (that’s the theme) – so song titles need to include old, older, oldest, elderly, or aging.

Two cautions: 1) My Old Kentucky Home is not permitted, and 2) titles as 12-Year-Old Boy will be nixed because the boy isn’t old.

Production Note
To prevent browsers crashing from loading too many videos, please 1) include the song title and artist in your text, and 2) paste the URL as part of your last line (not a new line). The latter will provide a link, thus not embed the actual video … but I don’t mind unembedding, so apologies are not necessary.

Announcement
A rock legend opens Act 15, so saying his name is all that’s needed. Ladies and gentleman, singing Old Man, welcome Neil Young.

98 thoughts on “Life: The Musical – Act 15: Growing Old”

  2. Wow, Frank, hard to believe that Neil Young was ever that young! Great video! My sister was wild over him back then. Here’s Pulp with Jarvis Cocker (no relation to recently checked out Joe) singing “Help the Aged” in 1997: http://youtu.be/_bZjKC0EaY0 Considering that Jarvis hits 52 this year, the lyric, “Funny how it all slips away,” is probably resonating a helluva lot more now than it did then.

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  6. Okay, so I’m going to break to rules here, Frank so please forgive me. And I don’t mind if you disqualify me, because this song doesn’t have the word “old” in the title, but it’s one of my favorite songs about aging and also about living in an age where one doesn’t quite fit. I give you Jimmy Buffet and “A Pirate Looks at 40.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZHNSrl9KsU Two of my favorite lines appearing in the same song: “The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothing to plunder. I’m an over 40 victim of fate.” And: “My occupational hazard is, my occupation’s just not around.”

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  9. plus i bought every album, and know each poem/lyrics. i read
    his autobiograpy recently. he has s seriously challenged son.
    His brillance extends to a love of trains and model trains.

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  15. I wanted to use “when I’m 64” by the Beatles but it doesn’t say “old” or “aged” in the title so I am (begrudgingly) deserting my initial choice and going with “Hope I die before I get old” originally by The Who but most awesomely and tastefully covered by The Zimmers. I am quite sure that you will agree that I covered all bases in this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqfFrCUrEbY

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  17. Okay, you can disqualify me because old is not in the title. It’s so old it’s not even a song. However, it is an old tune, it feels old, it’s old school, it’s played by 2 guys who are so old, they’re gone. It might as well be called “Old Blues”, so here is “Slow Blues” by Oscar Peterson and Count Basie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3drqJ1bUmEA Whether I’ve made the cut, or not, you have inspired me!

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  21. Ah Frank, this is an easy one for me! I LOVE the group Little Feat and this is one of my favorites of theirs – “Old Folks Boogie” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_nFwwjBlEc complete with a smoking’ piano solo by Bill Payne. This is the perfect song to sing while driving long distance and/or stuck in traffic 🙂 Greatest line? “Oh, you know you’re over the hill, when your mind makes a promise that your body can’t fill.” Enjoy!

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  26. Pingback: Life: The Musical – Act 16: Death | A Frank Angle

  27. Pingback: Life: The Musical – Act 17: Remembrance | A Frank Angle

  28. Pingback: Life: The Musical – Epilogue | A Frank Angle

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