In the ’80s and ’90s, I lost hundreds of friends who never got the chance to grow old. When I hear people complain about aging, I think about them. Everybody gets to decide how they want to look. For me, I don’t want to color the gray in my beard or try to look younger than I am. Those friends never got to be this age.
I carry these years with respect for them and gratitude that I’ve had them. And maybe someday I’ll get to sit with those friends again and tell them what growing old was like, so they can know a little of the experience they never got to have.
Lyrics
I got gray in my beard now
More of it every year
I could dye it, I reckon
But I'm damn glad it made it here
I knew too many good men
Who never got this far
They stayed young in old photographs
While time kept leavin' marks on the rest of us
They didn't get this old
That changes how you see it
Every line and every gray hair
Took some livin' just to get there
I ain't gonna curse the years
Or wish the marks away
I know too well what age can mean
So I'll take every damn day
There was a time back then
When another name meant gone
One more chair sat empty
One more voice we carried on
We learned way too young
How quick a life can close
Some of us kept gettin' birthdays
Too many of our friends never grew old
They didn't get this old
That changes how you see it
Every line and every gray hair
Took some livin' just to get there
I ain't gonna curse the years
Or wish the marks away
I know too well what age can mean
So I'll take every damn day
There were candlelight vigils
For the ones we lost back then
And patches of a giant quilt
Spread out across the National Mall
Every square said someone mattered
Every name said he was here
Maybe that's why I don't mind
One more line, one more gray hair
I don't call it fairness
Hell, I don't even know what to call it
I just know they never got the chance
To bitch about gettin' old
They didn't get this old
That changes how you see it
Every line and every gray hair
Took some livin' just to get there
I ain't gonna curse the years
Or wish the marks away
I know too well what age can mean
So I'll take every damn day
So let my beard turn gray
Let every year come through
I'm not ashamed of gettin' older
I'm just grateful that I do
Every morning we wake up breathin'
Is a day that wasn't owed you