I’ve spent this past week thinking about that elusive point in the river marked with a sign that says: ‘You are now old. No turning back.’
Last week I was chopping wood with my 10-year-old grandson Milo when he swung his log splitter and sliced a solid chunk of red gum in half as if it was a watermelon.
Not to be outdone, I raised the splitter over my head and aimed for a log, but it bounced off like a rubber hammer sending muscle spasms up my back and arms and smoke out of my ears.
I felt like Elmer Fudd from Looney Tunes and couldn’t sit down or stand up straight for a week.
“No Poppy — you’re doing it wrong. You’ve got to go with the grain and aim for the cracks. Like this,” Milo said and sliced another red gum melon in half.
I should have said “I know, I know, I’ve been doing this for 60 years, you little bloody show-off.”
But I didn’t.
He was just being 10 and passing on his fresh experience to the tired old hat-wearers.
His river sign was a long way off.
Ageing is a bit like the hat slogan of the right: Make Australia/America/Great Britain Great Again.
When does that happen exactly?
I think I might have just found out.
It happens when the past arrives with an Elmer Fudd slap that jolts you out of your comfort zone.
It happens when the things you once thought were rock solid and would never change start to crumble like your lower spine.
This happens at different rates for different people.
Some people, particularly hat-wearing nostalgics, are old at 45, while others like Paul McCartney at 83, are still waiting for the river sign to show up around the next bend.
Today, McCartney releases his 27th solo studio album since The Beatles broke up after writing the template for popular music in eight short years during the 1960s.
In The Boys of Dungeon Lane, McCartney embraces nostalgia and sentiment with ease and warmth as he looks back at his Liverpool childhood.
I’ve only heard two of the songs so far, but they both contain his gift for soaring melody, dreamy lyrics and combining experimental sounds with trad jazz and crunchy rock guitar.
If his voice sounds a bit shaky, it only adds to the charm that here is an octogenarian doing it all with energy, relevance and class.
In Home to Us, McCartney swaps vocals with Ringo, adding another layer of poignancy to their shared memories.
The song thumps along with the best of McCartney’s ’60s classics like Penny Lane and Oasis’ Beatles wannabe songs like She’s Electric.
McCartney was the Beatle who listened to Bach and Shostakovich in the ’60s and later used electronica in his solo work like Temporary Secretary in the ’80s and The Firemen in the ’90s.
So it’s no surprise that he can make nostalgia sound hip, sweet and fun at the same time on his new record.
Some say The Boys of Dungeon Lane could be his swansong, but I have a feeling he is a relentless musical sailor, and his own river sign won’t appear for a few more bends yet.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
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