Classic rock’s ‘Hey Nineteen’ is on Social Security today

Rocker Steve Miller put it best: “Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future.” And 2022 did indeed seem far off in the future when he sang those words in 1976.

Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity showed time is, well, relative. And nowhere is that truer than for the characters in the hit songs of yesteryear.

But consider this: You aren’t the same age you were when you first heard those songs, and neither are the people mentioned in them. So, just how old would they be today? It’s worth a look.

The Beatles told us about “Lovely Rita” of meter-maid fame. She was likely in her mid20s when that song was released in 1967. Rita would now be pushing 80 in 2022.

This next one is easier to peg because her age is part of the title. Remember the college ditz Steely Dan sang about in the 1980 hit “Hey Nineteen”? If she were real, she would be preparing to file for Social Security now at 61.

For many years, there was great speculation about the true age of the cougar outlined in Rod Stewart’s 1971 “Maggy

May.” We know she is older than the college boy she has seduced. After all, “The morning sun when it’s in your face really shows your age.” But exactly just how much older was for many years hotly debated over latenight beers by males who heard the song in their youth. Some said 30s; others argued for 40s. If we split the difference, Maggy May would be nearing 90 now.

And what about the narrator of the song that’s a serious contender for the Baby Boomer anthem? You’ll recall “American Pie” was sung by a narrator in the first-person voice. Assuming the young man who in 1971 walked us through a rollcall of 1950s and ’60s touchstone hits was around 25, he would be 76 right now.

People from our past (even those who don’t really exist) freeze in our minds the way they were when we left them.

What, you rightfully ask, is the historical significance to all this? Nothing. But with the

West and Russia flirting with World War III over Ukraine and inflation taking a bigger chomp out of your paycheck each week, it’s refreshing to divert our attention to something that doesn’t mean a hill of beans except that everyone gets older. Even characters who don’t exist.

Which brings us to the concluding point. “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?” Paul McCarney famously wanted to know in 1967. The answer is long since in Sir Paul’s rearview mirror: He turns 80 this June.