25 Days of Music: Day 9

Irony has entered the chat.

You probably know the song “Young at Heart.”

Fairy tales can come true
It can happen to you
If you’re young at heart.

It’s a sweet song, even lovely in the right hands. Frank Sinatra had a huge hit with it in 1954, and since then it’s been recorded dozens of times, frequently by older performers getting some irony out of the lyrics. (We are using irony in the Cleanth Brooks sense.)

But the song isn’t about being old in years. It’s about being old “at heart.” Felling like you’re old and nothing’s fun anymore. What if there were a version by a singer who wasn’t especially old chronologically, but had enough world-weariness to make it sound like the downest blues song you ever heard?

Tom Waits has entered the chat.

That is what I want a cover song to do. Not just hit the notes and sing the words, but make me appreciate the whole production in a new way. Granted, this new way makes me want to go lie down drunk in a gutter, but that seems like a valid response to Tom Waits singing about surviving to a hundred and five.