Young Forever

Wrote this in 1988 and recorded it in 2018.

"Don't be alarmed! Don't be alarmed! 
I'm just a silly old fossil falling down. 
I've drunk much more than an old man should, 
So here I am on the ground.

Ah, please, no consternation,
And concern is scarcely apt.
You should be laughing with me,
At the antics of a man of sixty,
Still acting fresh and frisky,
Who feels he's been miscast.

It's strange, you know, but somewhere I think
That I'm just as young as you,
And I have to pinch myself to find
That, oh dear, it isn't true.

And I can't understand why someone as pretty,
As you assuredly are,
Isn't the least bit interested
In a man who some once expected
Might become a superstar.

Who's drunk and stupid and upside down
And ever so sorry and past it.
It's weird but you just don't realise
To whence your time, that trickster, flies
And, thus, it comes as a mild surprise
To find you're a silly old bastard.

But don't be alarmed, I'm a gentleman
And I care for your pretty, pink youth.
Just help me to heave my drunken age
Upright to strut this ancient stage,
And fret for a time on previous page
When I knew much less than the truth.

Don't be alarmed! Don't be alarmed!
He's just a silly, old fossil falling down.
A sodden, punch-drunk player king
Who, long ago, lost his crown.

Let's forget the old sit com
That is no longer funny.
Let's talk about bright lights
And love and sex and money
And, if we get bored, the weather.
At twenty one, not one can deny
That sixty is just some faraway lie.
And we will be young forever."