Then We Were New

Don't look at me, it's way too soon to see
what's gonna be; don't look at me.

— Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney, who turns 80 this week, entertained last night for nearly three uninterrupted hours at a Baltimore baseball stadium that was filled to the rafters.

 

I bought the concert tickets as a birthday gift for my wife, who had waited decades at long last to see a childhood idol perform live.

The review in today's Baltimore Sun calls the show "a lively performance," a chaste assessment you'd more likely expect to read in the Liverpool Echo circa 1963.

McCartney rocked, as a matter of fact.

I was happy he chose to include "New" in his set list, a 2013 tune that's one of his finest.

When it was released, The Daily Telegraph described the song as a "jaunty, Beatles-esque stomp," but I think it's much more than that.

In the guise of a Sergeant Peppery love song, "New" conveys the giddiness that codgers like McCartney can experience in the face of decrepitude.

It's a giddiness that can lead to a longer life—and a happier one, as well—and is based on little more than aplomb.

It's a giddiness that defies the withered outer shell. 

"Within, I do not find wrinkles and used heart," Emerson said of the aged, "but unspent youth."

"Don't look at me," McCartney sings, "I can't deny the truth, it's plain to see; don't look at me. All my life I never knew what I could be, what I could do—then we were new."

Take just a moment to listen.