Here’s a fact to make your brain do a mental double take: Richard “Ringo Starr” Starkey just turned 70.
On July 7, Starkey was the first Beatle to become a septuagenarian. He is three months older than John Lennon, who would be reaching seven decades himself in October, and a whopping three years senior to George Harrison, who would have turned 68 in February. Paul McCartney celebrated his own 68th trip around the solar merry-go-round on June 18.
With the magic “old age” milestone suggested in “When I’m Sixty-Four” well behind them, the surviving Beatles have debunked their own expectations of life in their twilight years. Both have grandchildren who are too old to dandle on their knees, but I expect neither of them spend much time mending fuses or digging weeds.
Although they’ve certainly received a great deal of attention as they’ve reached particular age milestones, The Beatles aren’t alone in piling on the years. It could be argued, however, that they have done so more gracefully than certain other British rockers. The Rolling Stones (average age of 66), for instance, all look like they’ve spent too long in a food dehydrator.
Actually, a number of rock’s biggest names have reached or are approaching pensioning age.
* Rod Stewart, 65, probably wishes he were younger now, whether he knew the same things or not.
* Neil Young, 65, can presumably put more empathy behind the lyrics to “Old Man” than when he released it at age 27.
* Pete Townshend, 65, and Roger Daltrey, 66, may want to take back that wish to die before growing old now that the teenage wasteland is so far behind them.
Those are just the living artists. Had Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison not joined the ranks of the 27 Club (for artists who died at that age), they’d be either 66 or 67. And the real kicker? Elvis would have turned 75 on Jan. 8.
What’s incredible is that people — myself certainly included — still go gaga over these artists. To my ears, they will probably always sound like the rebellious teenage rabble-rousers that set the world on fire. Their wrinkles and graying hair may be betraying them as being as human as the rest of us, but they’ll always project an air of immortality.
Clearly, rock ‘n’ roll, unlike war and technology, is not a young man’s game after all.