Is it so terribly strange to be 70?
Bob Dylan turned 70 yesterday. Fresh from playing concerts in China and Taiwan, he’ll jet on to Ireland, England, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark and Norway — and that’s just in June alone.
I heard strains of his Fourth of July concert last year while he played in a sold-out outdoor amphitheater in Limerick, Ireland. As I stood across the Shannon River from the show, “Like a Rolling Stone” tumbled me all the way back to when I first heard it in my teens.
Both Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, who sang "Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly? How terribly strange to be 70,” in the song “Old Friends” in 1968, also become septuagenarians this year
And David Crosby, whom I heard in concert with Graham Nash earlier this month, hits 70 this year as well and is still singing sublime harmony. Nash, by the way, is a mere 69.
Joan Baez, Neil Diamond and Mike Love of the Beach Boys celebrated their 70thbirthdays earlier this year and are going strong.
Most of these singers (with the exception of Neil Diamond) were the soundtrack of my adolescence, spinning in vinyl on my cheap stereo, their albums filling two orange crates on the shag carpeting of my room.
Today, the orange crates are long gone, and in some digital-age abracadabra, the music all fits on my iPod — with room to spare for Paul Simon’s new album.
The times may be a-changin’, but it’s good to know so much still sounds the same.
May we all stay forever young.