Old Man

Album: Sail Away (1972)
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Songfacts®:

  • Newman told Mojo magazine September 2008 that this song, in which an elderly man is offered cruel but truthful comfort by his son, turned out to be closer to reality than he thought. He explained that he didn't tell his father on his deathbed in 1990 "that this was the way you raised me so this is what you get. I saw him every day, but he took a while dying. I wanted to show more, somehow, and later I thought about that song." Newman added that though his father was physically affectionate, "I don't know whether in his head he was particularly affectionate. I thought of him hearing 'Old Man,' if he ever listened to it."

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  • Linda from Frisco TxFinally, after three years, ‘able to mourn the death of my husband of 55 years
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