Day 177 | Never Get Old

I think of this song as both intentionally and unintentionally ironic. Bowie was singing about never getting old when he was in his late 50s, which although 50s are not looking so old to me any more, must have been deliberately ironic, much more so than the Who singing about dying before getting old, when they could probably more easily imagine dying than getting old. The unintentional irony is that shortly after this song Bowie suffered debilitating health issues that sidelined him for a decade. Bowie resurrects some of his techniques both in the song and in the video here. He sings so fast that it isn’t clear that the song is actually about what it seems to be about. Maybe he isn’t singing about never getting old. He throws in lines about never being able to get enough of some of his old bad habits and he pops out with a “countdown,’ which harkens back to “Space Oddity.” The video starts with Bowie talking over the music of the song, which he also did in the “Thursday’s Child” video. Also of note, Bowie would later mix a version of this song with “Rebel Rebel,” creating the hybrid, “Rebel never gets old.” Album: Reality