When I'm 64....

I don't know how many of you remember the Beatles song from the mid Sixties "When I'm 64".  It was sung, I believe, by Ringo Starr and featured in their film "Yellow Submarine", a full length cartoon movie. It was a song that has been with me for too many years, and though it was not really one of my top favourites then it has, over the years, featured as a sort of target. A date in the future when I'd reach that age.

S0 yesterday I finally reached that target....I now am 64!!  Yipee!! I had a fabulous day with so many text, e-mail and FB friends wishing me all the very best, good luck and blessings for the coming year. It is somehow nice to realise you are appreciated after all.

BUT today is the day after.  And so what was the big deal all about?  I suppose you can say that birthdays come and birthdays go but the Beatles song stayed with me throughout the years. So I gave it it's run for what that's worth...and came up with some thoughts.

The song talks about that fateful day in the distant future when, having lost my hair, I'd turn 64. In a way it's a  modern love song where the singer asks his life's partner what would she be doing when he was 64..... "Will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine..." 

But I love the way he really takes the situation in hand and asks her "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?"   The thing I like about this song is it's really human approach to a relationship which we seem to have lost - or are losing at a very fast pace - today. The author obviously thinks that at 64 they'd be still together......   
I could be handy, mending a fuse when your lights have gone, 
You can knit a sweater by the fireside, 

Sunday mornings, 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?

Ah, how things have changed in the intervening 45 or so years when his song was written.  Do we still believe that relationships/marriages last that long?  Do we still believe that marriage is there to last a lifetime?  "Use and discard" is way we live today; nothing is built to last more than a few years...why should it when another, better version, is bound to arrive to replace what we have?  The same goes, it seems with families which tend t change format with every growing whim....and the poor children having to make out who their real mum and/or dad is!

How different I find that we are now at "age 64" than the times the Beatles envisioned for today.....Ah, grandchildren on your knee, Vera, Chuck and Dave! 


Am I being too pessimistic?  Perhaps. But then perhaps the Beatles too had a feeling that not everything would be so fine and dandy.  So let me close with the song's ending...


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 forever moreWill you still need me, will you still feed me
 when I'm sixty-four?  


NOW enjoy the music and vision of John, Paul, George and Ringo from their original cartoon film...... 


click here>>>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3chFhCP5mQ