Songfacts®:

• The strangest story every told
  Was how I got to be this old
  
  Loudon Wainwright III tells us the strange story of his life in "The Here & The Now" from the album Older Than My Old Man. Like pages flipped in a family album, we see the singer being born and growing through the decades. Women come and go, his children are born, but all the while he can't understand what his purpose is in the "here and now."
  
  I don't know why I'm not sure how
  I wind up here to the here and now
  
  By the 21st century, he finds the answer staring him right in the face… or in the pants.
  
  My seed's been spent and my loins are cold.
  
  "I suppose it could be argued that I'm here to procreate. And now that my procreating days are pretty much over, there's no point in being here anymore, if you want to take a hard line on that," said Loudon to the A.V. Club.
• All four of Wainwright's children - Rufus, Martha, Lucy and Alexandra ("Lexie") - are featured on the song, along with ex-lover Suzzy Roche and current wife Ritamarie Kelly.