Back in 2013, I read an interview with Mark Kozelek in which he spoke about his live concerts being filled with middle-aged people in tennis shoes. This had a tragic ring to it. Back then I believed this to be a likely destination: middle age, tennis shoes, a concert by an ageing indie singer-songwriter. I pictured myself as part of that dire crowd, and I felt a cold pang in my heart. Because I knew there was more to it than simply accepting, as I did at some point, that Nevermind and OK Computer were, in fact, rather good albums. No, there must be a bigger price you have to pay.
How, though, can you tell that the cracks are starting to appear and you really are getting older? What does music have to say about that?
Joni Mitchell. What used to sound like meandering, tuneless pleasantness, starts to acquire a certain shape. This may, indeed, be a shape of an Impressionist painting - but for the first time in your life you are willing to move beyond "Big Yellow Taxi" and that pretty Christmas song and get lost in the freewheeling style of albums like Hejira and For The Roses. Not so much exciting - as calm, vaguely seductive, wise. Not so much Mingus, though, her LP from 1979 that made jazz sound like boring adult contemporary. Not that. You are getting older, but you still have your self-respect to hold on to.
Peter Gabriel, too. In the past, you were more into people like Roger Waters - the edgy rock philosophers, the uncomfortable ones. These days, you listen to a song like "Live And Let Live" and the universalist lyricism gets to you. One should really dismiss it as bullshit (in the times of Israel and Palestine, in the times of Ukraine) but, oddly, you hang on to the old platitudes that no longer appear as such.
You start hating Eurovision. Back in the day, you were charmed by it, albeit ironically. You bought Italian wine and Swedish beer. You cooked Spanish meatballs and baked Polish desserts. You prepared a sheet of paper where you rated each song, however awful and hopeless, out of ten. You gave a 7 to Albania, a 4 to Portugal and a 0 to Belarus. Today, the very word makes you wince. You can no longer love it ironically. Non-ironically, it was always unpalatable.
The Hold Steady. All of a sudden, you start to understand why middle-aged rock critics love them so much. Why they give glowing reviews to Craig Finn's non-musical vocals and earnest swagger... Ten years ago, I would not have batted an eyelid listening to a song like "Sixers". These days, I am almost moved to tears by the story that is too bitter, beautifully concise and way too recognisable. Worse than that. The idea of playing "Stay Positive" first thing in the morning no longer seems cheap and off-putting.
You start to believe that Steely Dan are legitimately one of the greatest bands ever. Face it, you have always had that suspicion, but you could not run too far with it. Can't Buy A Thrill and Pretzel Logic - you fell in love with those long ago, but Aja had always seemed a step too far. Well, not anymore. You like Aja now. Oh you fucking love that album. There are times when you can even take on "Peg", never mind "Black Cow". And, on the horizon, there is still the dim and not too pleasing prospect of Gaucho. Could that be done, ever? I do not know. I still have not cracked that one.All that said, you still cannot stand solo Sting... There are things that even an older age cannot fix. And as for Mark Kozelek, the guy has been cancelled, so I stand no chance of buying a pair of tennis shoes and seeing him live. Society took care of that. Besides, although I still like his music, I never really wanted to see a Mark Kozelek show in the first place. And also, tennis shoes make my left knee hurt.
