Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Too Old To Be A Popstar

To hear the 2006 Toronto original recording of this song, click here



I’ll be fifty-one in June and the greyness is just starting

Not just my hair and beard but the way I spend my days 

Too much order and convention on this journey I’ve been charting

On my Titanic of dreams along the iceberg-frosted waves

And my voice is kinda rough and this tune is no doubt stolen
And the world has had enough of all those I’m Still Young clichés
 
Leave the fighting for the truth to the ones empowered by youth
I’m much too old to be a popstar but I’m singing anyway  


Be the Blanche to my Kowalski, be the Siren to my Mariner
You’re too old to play Lolita and Humbert’s not my style
 
I can make up with experience what perhaps I lack in stamina
I may not be George Clooney but I’m very versatile 

Let me take you down to Vegas, let me take you to Niagara
We could spend a quiet weekend doing Nature or a play
 
I’m a fully paid up member of the cult of Lord Viagra
I’m too old to be your lover but I’m sighing anyway  

Chorus  

You’ve got to learn to fail
And write you’re resignation letter
Then fail again
But fail better
Keep on climbing
though there is no pinnacle
keep on believing
when the world grows cynical
Don’t let the bastards
take your dreams away
You’re much too old to be a popstar
but keep on singing anyway

I'm good at asking questions though I can offer no solutions
But let me take this opportunity to raise a few complaints
 
Our minds not just our bodies are the victims of pollution
And could you treat your fellow men please with a little more restraint

Look I don’t want to sound angry but you’re dinner plate is loaded
And the plans you made for global peace are in total disarray
 
The myth of our democracy’s a bomb still unexploded
I’m too old to be a rebel but I’m protesting anyway

Chorus


Rummaging through my notebooks some years after making that recording, and after singing the song at least a thousand times, I discovered that I originally wrote two more verses, and then forgot I had done so. The song doesn't need them, and they're not really good enough anyway, but here they are, just for the interest.


I’ll be seventy in nineteen years and eighty-one in thirty
And I’ve absolutely no intent of dying before then
And though you find it troublesome and even disconcerting
I propose to go on singing this again and then again

I plan to go on loving and protesting and enjoying
So keep your thirty shekels I don’t know the word betray
You can call me a damned nuisance or simply plain annoying
I’m too old to be a popstar but I’m singing anyway

Chorus

Since you haven’t switched me off yet (though that doesn’t mean your listening)
There’s one or two more things that I would really like to say
Such as Jesus was a Jew and he never had a christening
And two thousand years of hatred is a wicked price to pray

And Islam isn’t evil, and black people aren’t monkeys
and women can do better than housekeeping for no pay
it’s easier to grovel to the rich and be their flunkeys
and I’m too old to be a hero but I’m dissenting anyway




You can find David Prashker at:



If you would like to include "Too Old To Be A Popstar" in your repertoire, either for paid public performance or to record for commercial purposes, or if you would like to re-use the recording attached to this blog-page for commercial purposes, contact argaman@theargamanpress.com. 
Use of this song, and/or this recording, for non-commercial purposes, is not simply permitted but invited.
Words and music by David Prashker
Copyright © 2014 David Prashker

All rights reserved

The Argaman Press
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