I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die
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They Might Be Giants used cue cards so the audience could sing along, seen here at Rockitz in Richmond, VA on March 5, 1988
| song name | I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | They Might Be Giants, 1985 Demo Tape [Hello re-issue], Then: The Earlier Years, Podcast 52 |
| year | 1985 |
| first played | November 12, 1985 (75 known performances) |
| run time | 1:58 |
| sung by | John Flansburgh (sings the first verse alone); John Linnell (sings the second verse alone) |
Trivia/Info
- This song's title is a play on the lyric "I hope I die before I get old," from The Who's 1965 song "My Generation". Linnell explained the impulse behind this in a 1988 Boston Globe interview:
["I hope that I get old before I die"] seemed the more correct point of view. A lot of our songs are really pretty negative, but they're put in a friendly-sounding way. In that case, I was thinking about how our society doesn't look up to its elderly, and feeling like the old man I'll eventually become.
- Flansburgh, in a 1996 ICE Magazine interview:
Restless was doing a polka album, and they were interested in rock bands that did polka songs. Before we were signed, we tried to convince them to use this song [as well as Become A Robot]; they had no interest in it, so we put it on our first album.
- When this song was performed live in the 1980s, large cue cards upon which the lyrics were printed were held up, and the Johns encouraged the audience to sing along.
- The demo version of this song features only an accordion and duet vocals from Flansburgh and Linnell.
- This song's title appeared as "Hope That I Get Old Before I Die" on Then: The Earlier Years and in the liner notes of They Might Be Giants.
Song Themes
Accents, Clothes, Death, Food, Long, Long, Occupations, Puns, References To Other Songs Or Musicians, Songs With Handclaps, Water
Videos
- A live performance of this song appears in Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns).
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