Come gather 'round people wherever you roam
It's time to start looking for a good nursing home
And accept it that soon you'll be living alone
And you'll need help with bathin and shavin
They say "golden years," but it's the twilight zone
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Come pals from the Sixties who are sixty like me
Once we were longing to love and be free
And now we're all marchin in the A.A.R.P,
And get senior discounts on drug payments
And we're longing to live til we're 73
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Come doctors and internists, answer my call.
Does my PSA say that my prostate's still small?
These blood pressure pills are not helping at all.
Or these tranquilizers I'm taking.
I walk cross the room, I'm afraid I will fall,
For the times, they are a-changin'.
Come daughters and sons throughout the land
Someday you'll get old and you'll understand.
There's gray in my hair and big spots on my hand.
Your daddy is rapidly agin'.
Once I rolled stones and now I'm an old man,
For the times, they are a-changin'.
I never dreamed I'd get this old so fast
I look in the mirror and I'm simply aghast
Cause all of my best times are far in the past.
And my memory is rapidly fadin',
And my memory, my friends, is blowin in the wind
Like a rolling stone
In a nursing home
Happy Birthday to me
No,no,no, it ain't me Bob
It ain't me who's getting old, Bob,
It ain't me who's getting old.
Forever young, forever young,
I will stay.....forever young.
© Garrison Keillor 2001