It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me

What Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, travel, and a little rebellion can teach us about aging on our own terms.

As a senior entertainer, I have been gigging since 1992, and as a musician, since 1972. So, my repertoire and musical tastes are all over the place. When I first got into senior entertainment, I relied on the Great American Songbook but realized, even with the Sinatra toons, people like to sway, dance, jitterbug – in short – rock it out. I started joking then that I would one day be playing Springsteen at the old folks’ home.

We’re almost there. We have progressed from Elvis and the Beatles into late 60s and early 70s. That got me thinking that Billy Joel’s “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” is a metaphor for how we can age with a quality of life.

Billy received some criticism at the time being labeled more of a pop star with a formulaic approach then a craftsman, despite his amazing repertoire and diversity of genres – think Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, New York State of Mind – well-crafted masterpieces. Yes, “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” followed the formula of those early rock classics – three chords and a hook. Yet he stopped, not silenced the critics in their path. The song was number one for two weeks and his sold out residencies at Madison Square Garden told the rest of the story. Still the critics griped but Billy just stopped needing their approval to keep going.

Make No Excuses

My wife and I have been traveling extensively this year. I mean home two weeks, gone two kind of thing. People wonder how we do it and why but there’s always a tinge of jealousy or entitlement in the phrasing. (Read between the lines – aren’t you leaving anything for the kids?)

In short, our reply is that our kids are doing fine and will still receive a good-sized inheritance. But more than that, we worked hard for this ability to travel. We planned for it. We saved for it. We planned efficiently and economically. And we are doing it while we still can.

Getting back to the song, who decides when swaying, dancing, jitterbugging – and yes, traveling – has an age cutoff? Where does that assumption come from?

Youth Is for the Young?

Of course, the best of rockers in their day, my day, were rebellious youth. “Hope I die before I get old” is famously sung byThe Who. Yet these same rockers are still rocking today.

Take Dylan’s “Forever Young” song.

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift[…]
May your heart always be joyful.
May your song always be sung…

Hmmm. Sounds not like being young but acting young.

Dylan continues to reinvent himself well into his 80s. Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and Johnny Cash show musical evolution does not end with youth.

Yet society has certain unwritten rules.

• The Quiet Rule: Society expects older adults to prefer quiet life and calm music.
• The Youth Bias: Rock music belongs to the young in many minds.
• The Invisible Elder: Culture often tries to hide older bodies from loud, public spaces.

Change Your Look. Change Your Sound. Or Be True to Yourself

That is the essence of Joel’s song. As New Wave crashes into the scene, the record companies pressure him to do that. He stays true to himself and his roots.

So how do you want to age? Do you want life to basically tell you what to do and passively acknowledge the fate? Or do you want to age actively where you set the rules?

Ashton Applewhite in This Chair Rocks put it succinctly. “Fear of dying is human. Fear of aging is cultural.” And the culture pushes fear because it sells anti-aging products that way.

Some celebrities like Jamie Lee Curtis have rejected this notion, opting to let her hair grow out and avoid makeup. My own mom defied the rules, had a boyfriend in her 80s and danced until she was almost 90!

I formed a group of mostly retired and semi-retired older gentlemen who get together for lunch monthly or choose to do some activity like pickleball, bowling, movies. It keeps us moving and socialized.

A friend considering retirement, plans to learn guitar.

Change Your Script

Where have you been passively accepting a script (about music, travel, activity, whatever) and how can you choose otherwise? Follow these leads:

• The retired executive who started a garage band at 68. Spent 30 years running meetings, picked up a bass guitar for the first time since college, and now plays in a cover band that gigs at local bars once a month – badly, by his own admission, and he doesn’t care.
• The 74-year-old who took up competitive swimming.
• The couple who sold the house at 70 to live on a sailboat.
• The widower who learned to dance at 80.
• The grandmother who went back to school for a degree she never finished.
• The man who started dating again at 78 after 50 years married.

As for me, after a couple of years off, at 69, I am actively looking to go back and entertain at brew pubs and senior communities. And while I will be brushing up on the standards, you can be sure Bruce will surface and maybe a Taylor Swift song or two.

To further prove that old artists can still have hit songs today, consider Billy Joel’s “Turn the Lights Back On.” I’ll leave you with this.

I’m late, but I’m here right now…..
Did I wait too long to turn the lights back on?

Clearly not Billy!

Let’s Have a Conversation:

In what ways have you noticed ageism toward your personal life decisions? How have you responded? How do you spend your days and what do you keep doing that’s been labeled “for the youth”?