I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die
From This Might Be A Wiki
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 (77 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.
- The song's choruses beginning with "It's a long, long rope" could be a reference to the chorus of the English music hall song, "It's a Long Way to Tipperary."
Song Themes
Accents, Clothes, Death, Food, Long, Long, Occupations, Puns, References To Other Songs Or Musicians, Songs With Handclaps, Water
Videos
- I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die (2019 Brooklyn Trio Sessions)
- A live performance of this song appears in Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns).
Current Rating You must be logged in to rate this. You can either login (if you have a userid) or create an account with us today. I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die is currently ranked #422 out of 1014. (142 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.42) |
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