Young man, old man—anybody can appreciate the lyrics of this Neil Young classic.
Young wrote “Old Man” for Louis Avila, the elderly caretaker of the Northern California ranch he had recently purchased. The song compares a young man’s life with an older man’s and recognizes that age doesn’t necessarily change our most basic emotional needs. The young man can see something of his future in the old man, while the old man was once very much like him.
The arrangement is beautifully understated. Neil Young’s plaintive voice is surrounded by acoustic guitar, Ben Keith’s pedal steel and a six-string banjo played by James Taylor. Taylor and Linda Ronstadt provide the background vocals.
It has long been one of my favorite Neil Young songs. Now that I qualify as an old man myself, the song sounds different than it did when I was young.
I suspect it will mean a little more every time another birthday rolls around.