Now I'm 64

Summer 1967. The summer of love they called it. It was my 15th summer. Sqt. Pepper was the number one record. I bought it the first week it was released in the record department at Sear's at Price's Corner in Wilmington Delaware. I played it a lot that summer and got to know each lyric personally. But I usually skipped over the song When I'm 64. I didn't really relate to it. It sounded kind of old fashioned and very different from the other songs on the album. My mother was 40 that year. My father was 45. So 64 was not something that meant anything to me. It didn't even seem like a distant future. It was just part of the title of a song I skipped over.

I'm 64 today.  It's still not one of my all time favorite songs.  But I do understand it now.  How did Paul McCartney in his 20's understand?  The genius of The Beatles.  Only I didn't quite see the genius of the song at 15.