THE OLDEST ROCKERS IN TOWN: The original generation of rock ‘n’ rollers remain more interesting than modern stars.

There are many reasons why musicians continue to make music, both live and in the studio, right up until the end. In some cases it is out of financial necessity, and in other instances it is because of an addiction to the adrenaline rush of mass adulation, an experience rather harder to reproduce in the lavish surroundings of an exclusive retirement community. Even as we might good-naturedly mock and wince at what we see as the more absurd aspects of their careers, there is an enormous affection that exists between audience and act, especially if their fans have grown up with their favourites. It is extremely rare to go to a gig by a “heritage act” and not see hordes of septuagenarians wearing leather jackets and band T-shirts that would have been cutting-edge forty years ago, and which now represent a living form of social history before us.

Yet the final reason why we will never tire of the original rock ‘n’ rollers is that they remain infinitely more interesting figures than the anodyne and unmemorable vast majority of younger artists, never afraid to innovate when it suits them. Bob Dylan, of all people, has recently had a number one single with the 17-minute long “Murder Most Foul,” about the Kennedy assassination.

Whatever the song’s intrinsic merits, its success is at least partially down to the enormous affection that Dylan is held in by millions, engendered by a 60-year career. Thus, when he said in a message to his admirers to “stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you,” his words were treated with the reverence of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. This is unlikely to be the case for, say, Ed Sheeran.

The young pretenders may have vigour, social media savvy and energy on their side, but their forbears, like the devil, will always have the best tunes.

Read the whole thing. As the author notes, “If Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, both now in their mid-seventies, have ever found anything amusing about singing the ‘Hope I die before I get old’ refrain in ‘My Generation,’ the joke might have worn very thin by now.” In more ways than one: having caught The Who in Philadelphia during their “‘first’ farewell tour” in 1983, I had hoped to see them again last year, before that tour had dates postponed because Daltrey came down with a case of bronchitis. The 2020 replacement shows have been indefinitely postponed thanks to our friends in Wuhan and Bejiing, bringing new meaning to a Tommy Song Townshend wrote over 50 years ago: “Got a feeling ’21 is gonna be a good year.”