Of Younger Days (When I Was 63!!)/Beatles' "When I'm 64"

New Yorker, "When I was 63 . . ." then scroll down to lyrics for The Beatles' "When I'm 64" :

Shouts & Murmurs MARCH 16, 2015 ISSUE

Of Younger Days

BY IAN FRAZIER

  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CREDITILLUSTRATION BY GARY TAXALI

When I was sixty-three, a cheeseburger at a diner on Fifty-seventh Street cost $24.95, you could ride the Staten Island Ferry for free, and a kid could get a pretty decent college education for a quarter of a million dollars. Life was slower then, partly because of my newly acquired hip problem, but I did not know enough to appreciate the leisurely pace. I was always wanting to hurry up, to go faster and farther, to cross the street before the “Walk” signal ended. Now I wonder—why in the world was I in such a rush, back when I was sixty-three? Obviously, I did not want to get hit by a car, and there never seemed to be enough time to get across all twelve lanes of Queens Boulevard, the “Boulevard of Death.” But now I often have trouble remembering what else seemed so almighty urgent to me back then.

During that never-to-be-repeated summer, I had just turned sixty-three when I began the hesitant, sweet, shy courtship of my first real girlfriend. My wife was furious, of course. It’s poignant to think that today I’ve even forgotten her name—and my girlfriend’s, too. The summer I was sixty-three was also when I had my second real girlfriend, and my fifth, and my eleventh. Looking back, and remembering how much I paid them, I wonder if they weren’t prostitutes. But what did I know? I was just your typical gawky, self-conscious sixty-three-year-old, hormones going crazy. My voice had recently changed, from a high, piping tenor to a kind of guttural, gurgling rasp. My body was changing, too, and I became very aware of and embarrassed by the large breasts I had developed. So much seemed new and unfamiliar when I was sixty-three.

That enchanted summer was all about the music. I gave myself over entirely to the many songs I heard everywhere—in elevators, on SiriusXM, in shopping malls, in my periodontist’s office—as they created a powerful soundtrack for my days and nights. Even today, when I hear a certain lyric from that lost summer of however many months ago, and Katy Perry sings that she’s “comin’ at you like a [something?] horse,” bittersweet tears fill my eyes. How could anything so lovely be so fleeting? The radiance has fled, but to where? Looking back, I regret that I did not go to more concerts, choosing instead just to hum the tunes while Dr. Tonnelli packed cotton under my lip before the gum augmentation. And where did those concerts take place, anyway, and what were the names of the people or the bands (if they were bands) I listened to? Now I’ll never know unless I look them up.

The summer I was sixty-three was also when I went to San Francisco. One morning, I just dropped everything, said goodbye to everybody I could get in touch with, and flew out there in a middle seat in economy. San Francisco was different then, in the early sixties—my early sixties, that is. I look at the wild haircut I had back then and I have to laugh! And where in the world did I get those pants? Yes, I am still wearing them right now, but where did I get them? At the Short Hills Mall, I think. In San Francisco, I did a lot of experimenting with drugs, mainly because I had problems getting my prescription for blood-pressure medication renewed on a weekend. I may have permanently messed up my DNA, but it was worth it. You take all kinds of risks when you’re younger, and sixty-three. You think you’re immortal.

If some genie granted me the power to reverse time and meet up with my naïve sixty-three-year-old self, what advice would I give him? I might say, “Sixty-three-year-old, hang on tightly to experience while it’s in your grasp, especially the sales slips. And don’t be afraid to try new outfits, which are what you’ll later need the sales slips for. Dump your oil stocks, because the price of oil is going to come down. But, mainly, younger self—live! The mysterious, glorious, ineffable sweetness of being sixty-three will come to you only once on this earth.”

But then my sixty-three-year-old self would say back to me, “Yes, yes, I know. But tell me more about the price of oil. Will it go below fifty dollars a barrel? And what horse should I bet in the Belmont? And what odds should I give?”

That would probably hurt my feelings, because I’m imparting hard-won, sixty-four-year-old life advice here. So I would then knee my sixty-three-year-old self in the groin, and, when he (I) bent over, give him (me) an uppercut with both fists. Then he (I) would really understand what it means to be sixty-three. ♦

 
 
 
• 

Ian Frazier is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

• BIO 
• ALL WORK

Beatles – When I'm Sixty-Four Lyrics

When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now.
Will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine.

If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four

You'll be older too,
And if you say the word,
I could stay with you.

I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday morning go for a ride,
Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four

Every summer we can rent a cottage,
In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck and Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away

Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me.
When I'm sixty-four