National Post (National Edition)
Geezer ROCK
Why music fans have more than just sympathy for old devils.
“What you gonna do? Time’s caught up with you” — Black Sabbath, Hand of Doom (1970)
Aging rockers have been ridiculed since before they existed. When Roger Daltrey first sang “I hope I die before I get old,” and when Mick Jagger told
People magazine, “I’d rather be dead than sing Satisfaction when I’m 45,” they ensured their later careers would be called into question. However, despite all the invective that’s been launched at them and their contemporaries in recent years, 2013 has brought about a sea change. Rockers who make the transition from aging to downright aged are garnering respect. Suddenly, the pensioners are all right.
The 64-year-old Ozzy Osbourne, who in his 50s was described as “waddling around on a concert stage like a weasel with a hernia” ( The Guardian, 2002) and “looking fit for the retirement home” ( The
Times, 2005), has been widely praised for his work on Black Sabbath’s new album, 13. The Rolling Stones, victims of agerelated taunts ever since they released Steel Wheelchairs — er,
Steel Wheels — in 1989, have drawn plaudits for their “50 and Counting” tour, as has Rod Stewart for his own new release, Time. Bob Dylan, whose concerts not long ago were met with headlines asking if it was time for him “to hang up his hat and harmonica” ( Wall Street Journal, 2010), made positive waves when a summer tour with relative spring chickens Wilco and My Morning Jacket was announced; he has also just been approved to receive France’s Légion d’Honneur.
Why, as a culture, are we now paying deference to those we’ve been encouraged to disdain? Maybe we’ve lowered our expectations, or maybe the press, whom wild hearses once couldn’t drag away from an ageist pun, have finally decided that denigrating veteran rockers is old-hat.
The term “rejuvenation” has also been bandied about; generally, in rock, this means that an artist has been drawing inspiration from an era before he (or she) became a tax exile. After a long run of increasingly poorly received (but admittedly popular) cover albums, Rod Stewart penned his first songs since the ’ 90s for Time, even referencing his early career; the Times heralded an “impassioned rock album from a man who had seemed lost to show-tune fakery for ever.” When David Bowie reemerged in January with the single Where Are We Now?, he cannily referenced his fecund Berlin period. Black Sabbath, in recording 13, submitted to the demands of producer Rick Rubin (who previously revamped the careers of Neil Diamond and Johnny Cash), agreeing to “unlearn everything.” They looked back even
Age is now an adversary that makes them even more heroic
further than the last time Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, and bassist Geezer (don’ t say it) Butler had released an album together (1978’s Never Say Die!), to their years as a hungry band with everything to prove.
Of course, working with younger musicians can help boost credibility, whether it’s Dylan rejigging his Never Ending Tour to play with the relentlessly creative Wilco, or The Rolling Stones duetting with young whippersnappers who encourage them to raise their game — or at least make them look good simply for remembering their own lyrics (see Gwen Stefani’s faltering rendition of Wild Horses in L.A.). And people like it when you get by with a little help from your friends: The Stones, for instance, have welcomed back long-estranged guitarist Mick Taylor to play three standout tracks each night. After a recent life-saving liver transplant, Lou Reed, who was branded a curmudgeon long before he hit 71, thanked his tai chi master and looked forward to “writing more songs to connect with your hearts and spirits and the universe”. Even Pitchfork, which cringed when announcing Reed’s 2012 tour of European cities “whose nights would be ruined,” posted a respectful notice about the aftermath of his surgery.
Of course, it’s downright mean to criticize someone who’s battling mor tality. Bowie’s re-emergence at 66, nearly nine years after an onstage heart attack had seemingly killed his career, was praised to the heavens; no wonder he appeared in a video last month as a singing Christ figure. Iommi, at 65, is fighting lymphoma — he’ll be returning home every six weeks during this summer’s tour for treatment. Time is no longer on aged rockers’ side; it’s now an adversary that makes them even more heroic. Crowds and critics are wowed when they play long concerts each night, visibly expending more energy than most of their younger counterparts in trendier genres. Will we be as excited when Daft Punk, looking shiny as ever, wheel out their synths in 30 years?
Aging gracefully may be well and good, but it ’s Jagger’s “age-defying” moves that excite us. Where once young rockers sneered at older generations, now they’re raging against the dying of the light. It’s a doomed fight, but a romantic one — the kind befitting a rock ’n’ roll star.
When asked how to “come to terms with getting old” in his 2011 book Trust Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy, the Prince of Darkness replied, “Whatever you do, don’t just sit there like a lump, waiting for the Grim Reaper to arrive. Find something you enjoy doing.” And if it’s only rock ‘n’ roll? We’ll like it.