But experiences are always individual.Īnd, growing up can also serve as a powerful metaphor to describe and interpret other events in our lives. Best Songs About Growing Up, Final Thoughts The “light through the open door” is the truth we find when we’re willing to dig deeper. “So far in a distant land/There’s a fight between boy and man/See the light through the open door/Sit and watch as the young grow old.” But that doesn’t mean he’s responsible or mature. It’s easy to assume a man is a man because he is fully grown.
So, the idea is that we are easily fooled by appearance. The only line that seems to hint at the core subject matter is the last one in the second verse: “But age doesn’t make you a man.” The lyrics, however, are less forthcoming. The temptation with song, as with others, is to take the title at face value and trust that it is, in fact, a song about young growing old. “They were glued together with body and soul/That much more with their backs up against the wall” is referring to an alliance that stood together until the end. I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say this is a song about war. “I guess it had to happen someday soon/Wasn’t nothing to hold them down/They would rise from among us like a big balloon/Take the sky, forsake the ground.” These lines seem to contradict that notion: Some say this is a song about a couple who endured through hardship. The closing lines, in fact, talk about broken hearts, dreams running dry and the older generation passing on. The hope-filled lyrics of the first verse (“We were ring-around-the-rosy children/They were circles around the sun/Never give up, never slow down/Never grow old, never ever die young”) and second verse do not make a comeback in this song. What’s clear, at least from a surface level, is that everything is hunky dorky in this song until bad things started to happen. There’s more than meets the eye to “Never Die Young” by James Taylor. “Forever Young” by Rod Stewart, A Song About Growing Up (Or Not) That certainly reflects TMBG’s enduring career in some ways too.īut whether you were an “insider” or “outsider” as a youth, maybe you can find yourself in this song. The challenge is in being told that you’re an outsider. While that may be the case, there seems to be a deeper meaning – one where the reference to “youth culture” starts to make more sense.įlansburgh once shared about the idea of insiders and outsiders and said that there’s nothing painful about being an outsider.
Flansburgh once said he wrote it as a tribute to his dog Iggy. That is part of their esthetic, however, and I think they like it that way.Īs with all TMBG songs, different comments have been made about “Youth Culture Killed My Dog”. Their songs are impossibly catchy while being quirky and oftentimes difficult to interpret. They Might Be Giants represents the unique and eccentric collaboration between bandmates guitarist John Flansburgh and keyboardist John Linnell. It's okay to maintain a childlike attitude. “Well, when I’m lyin’ in my bed at night/I don’t want to grow up/Nothing ever seems to turn out right/I don’t want to grow up/How do you move in a world of fog/That’s always changing things?/Makes me wish that I could be a dog/Well, when I see the price that you pay/I don’t want to grow up/I don’t ever want to be that way/I don’t want to grow up.” Plainly, it’s a song about how things can get more complex in adulthood. Tom Waits’ “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” doesn’t have any hidden meanings. While it’s always a good idea to be responsible for yourself, you can still take a childlike (note: not childish) approach to your life. Most people assume that growing up is a necessity and an inevitability. And, if you had parents that cared for you, you probably didn’t have a lot of responsibilities growing up.
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