Older Than My Old Man Now

OLDER THAN MY OLD MAN NOW As recorded b yloudon Wainwright III (From the 2012 Album OLDER THAN MY OLD MAN NOW) [Intro]      If I remain still if I’m alone and silent long enough to hear the sound of my own blood or breathing or digestion above the rustling of leaves or the whirr of the refrigerator my father is likely to turn up. He just arrives unbidden in the long-running film of my thoughts like Hitchcock in his pictures and he looks for all these 40-plus years of disembodiment much like himself: big and sandy-haired with freckles on the backs of his hands; perhaps a bit more diffident in the way he holds himself than I remember. He doesn’t stay long and as far as I can tell his visits have no message. Yet even though years of therapy have led me to make the dark-whistling claim that he’s finally dead and gone my father who died when I was seventeen E                                                                                                 N.C. continues to be my principle ghost a lifelong eminence grise and only my own end will finish it [Interlude] [Verse 1] Older than my old man now He died at 63 that’s way too young Now you gotta feed me now you gotta need me And I feel like a faithless son Sixty-four is awful old You know what can happen next Hey I’m older than my old man ever was And I’m trying to keep it in context [Interlude] [Verse 2] Yes I’m older than my old man now His father died at 43 From now on it’s all gravy I got twenty years more Maybe I guess we’ll have to wait and see [Verse 3] I wasn’t sure the day would come I’ve been living underneath his thumb But I don’t feel so free I don’t even feel like me Now that there’s no race left to run [Interlude] [Verse 4] Yeah I’m older than my old man now I guess that means I kicked his ass But just ’cause you survive that don’t mean you feel alive And your demise will come to pass [Verse 5] Nobody’s sure exactly why Everybody’s got to die Still it comes as quite a blow know when you got to go And the world is gonna pass you by [Outro] Yes I’m older than my old man now Trying to keep it in context Not only older than my old man ever was But I’m guilty to have outlived my ex