(Post by John Allan from Bridgetown, Western Australia – April 2022.)

Lennon and McCartney of the Beatles were one of the most celebrated and prolific song writing duo of the last century. Theirs is the best known and most successful musical collaboration ever by records sold.

Unlike many songwriting partnerships that comprise a separate lyricist and composer, such as George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein or Elton John and Bernie Taupin, both Lennon and McCartney wrote lyrics and music.

To single out just one exemplar from their vast catalogue of popular hits would be extremely onerous………………………………. but they did write some absolute crap !

Yellow Submarine, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and Maxwell’s Silver Hammer are some prime examples of the shit that they could produce.

But right up there must be When I’m Sixty Four.

Like my fellow ‘born in 58’ followers of this fine blog, I turn that age at the end of this month.

When I’m Sixty Four was released on the 26^th of May, 1967 on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. To give John Lennon credit, his only contribution to the song was the addition of the lines ‘grand children on your knee’ and ‘Vera, Chuck and Dave’.

McCartney claims he wrote the song when he was 14 in 1956. Rock and Roll was just on the periphery of his life and this was a ‘cabaret minded’ ditty.

To put thing in perspective, here are a few fellow alumni of le club soixante-quatre.

 Musicians Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Andrea Bocelli and Kate Bush. Actors Jamie Lee Curtis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Gary Oldman, Sharon Stone and Peter Capaldi.

Those turning 64 when the song was released where actors Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Claudette Colbert. Writers George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh. Musicians Earl Hines and Bic Beiderbecke and Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home.

And 64 when the song was apparently written – Basil Rathbone, Oliver Hardy, Margaret Rutherford, Mary Pickford, Eddie Cantor, Jack L. Warner, Gummo Marx and a couple of world leaders/dictators Francisco Franco and Josip Broz Tito !

And for the record :

• I’m not losing my hair.
• I don’t and never have received Valentines.
• I do celebrate birthdays with bottles of wine as well as anniversaries, Christmas, Easter, special occasions and any other day with the letter ‘D’ in it !
• I’m barely still up at midnight.
• We don’t lock the door anyway.
• Mrs A still needs me (for retrieving things off high shelves and opening jam jars mainly)
• She still feeds me – a bit too well if I’m honest.
• I think I could probably still mend a fuse.
• Mrs A doesn’t knit
• I don’t wear sweaters anyway.
• Any Sunday morning rides are on my motor scooter.
• I can still manage a bit of gardening if my back isn’t playing up.
• Never got to the Isle of Wight.
• I do live in a cottage though.
• Scrimp and save ? Don’t get me started !
• No grandchildren on my knee.
• Vera, Chuck and Dave didn’t materialise.
• What’s a postcard ?
• I’m not filling in any forms !
• Yes I’m 64 – now FUCK OFF !!!