old enough to repaint, young enough to sell
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Here’s one to grow on. Written at a time beyond the self-imposed half-century boundary for this songbook — I was, by this point, a full 51 years old! — I nevertheless include this song as a look forward to my next half-century of aging, feeling, saying, meaning, and… well, you’ll see in the lyrics for the song.

For reference, a very nice rehearsal recording. As I’ve pointed out throughout these notes, these are very informal one-mic recordings we make as we work out an arrangement for a song so that we’ll be able to remember how to do it later. This one was recorded in October 2019 while rehearsing for what would have been our final set of live shows before the pandemic hit, making it The Viper & His Orchestra’s hottest club. This place has everything: it sounds like us, it sounds good, it’s imperfect, it’s got moments where it breaks down and we lay bare the device, and it’s got moments of nice, spontaneous invention. And I sneak in a final moment, Fats Waller style, to deliver some wisdom that only comes with age (or with listening to Toots and the Maytals).

Two video takes of rehearsing this song: each with their advantages, and both featuring a good amount of Charles Ives-like atmospheric noise, courtesy of bassist Riley Broach’s young daughters. From Take 1 to Take 2, watch us age before your very eyes.

The first might be the tighter performance, and with better sound (the phone recording it is a little closer to us). And it offers a chance to watch trombonist Rob Henn visually diagram a particularly convoluted sentence at 2 minutes 50 seconds (he’ll do it again in Take 2).

The second has particular value for the story-within-a-story of the little orchestra that could.

It might work better on a big screen in 70mm, like Jacques Tati’s Playtime, but watch the lower-left corner for the four-car train that unaccountably appears to start locomoting on its own at the 0:38 second mark, has a little trouble with the incline at 1:20 and again at 2:45, then at 3:50 musters up just enough energy to hurtle itself forward to its Wreck of the Old 97 moment just in time for the close of the song.