"Forever Young" - Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart and Alphaville's peans to living a full life

A week living at an assisted living facility with my aunt becomes a reminder of the importance of maintaining a childlike curiosity

The author celebrating his 1st birthday. I still maintain that cautious, worried expression.

I’m gonna explore in more detail the story of my recent adventures living (again) at my aunt’s assisted living facility — expect that within the next two newsletters — but today I’m writing about the song that has been stuck in my head since I returned home a couple days ago.

“Forever Young.”

It was Rod Stewart’s 1988 version that appeared to me first.

Then it morphed into Alphaville’s 1984 version. And then it morphed again into Bob Dylan’s 1974 classic. Then it flipped back to Rod Stewart.

Now I have all three “Forever Young’s” competing for top position in my brain, creating an entertaining yet distracting cerebral mashup. I wonder if anyone has actually edited an audio or video mashup of these three songs. Mr. McClintock, I’m gonna suggest this one for your next amazing video! (See sample of his work below.)

These three iconic “Forever Young” versions are sonically quite different, though each exudes a deep feeling of nostalgia. I don’t think it’s the sort of nostalgia that comes naturally through the passing of time. The subject matter in these songs is inherently nostalgic. It’s baked in.

For the Rod Stewart and Bob Dylan versions, the lyrics are aimed specifically at their children; for Alphaville (a German band) the song is about sticking to one’s youthful ideals and not becoming jaded and complacent as you age. The larger context at the time was the cold war, but the lyrics are universal enough to be resonant without needing to know the origin story.

I’m not going to go deep into whether or not Rod Stewart intentionally or unintentionally borrowed from Bob Dylan’s original “Forever Young.”

It’s clearly an homage. Stewart’s lyrics more or less follow the same structure and content as Dylan’s:

Dylan:

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you

Stewart:

May the good Lord be with ya down every road you roam
And may sunshine and happiness surround you when you're far from home
And may you grow to be proud, dignified, and true
And do unto others as you would have done to you

Stewart did run it by Dylan before releasing it — though Rod claimed not to have consciously borrowed from his musical idol. Dylan gave the song his blessing — and a demand for 50 percent of the royalties. He’s no dummy.

As a child-free adult, I haven’t had the exact experiences that Dylan and Stewart sing about in their takes on “Forever Young.”

I don’t have kids, but I’ve been a parent of dogs for the past 18-plus years, and I know the heartache of watching them go from extra-exuberant puppy to senior dog with graying muzzle that eventually requires assistance to climb up on the couch or the bed. Our time with our canine kids seems to pass in the blink of an eye.

There’s hardly anything that can turn me into a sobbing mush-ball quicker than a story of a dog nearing the end of its life. I refuse to watch movies that show a dog dying. I have the app “Does the Dog Die?” on my phone. It’s impressively comprehensive.

A few years ago, I volunteered at a senior dog rescue (Muttville.org). Being surrounded by dozens of older dogs — half of which were deaf, the other half mostly blind — made my heart both ache and crack wide open. In the main office, there was a giant dry erase board with each dog listed along with its specific walking, feeding and temperament needs. It included a description of the dog of course, as we didn’t know all the pups by name. (Most of their names were usually made up by the staff as it was the rare pup that arrived at the facility with a known medical history and name.)

I don’t want to compare taking care of senior dogs to taking care of senior adults, but I now see how my Muttville experience really helped me become extra attentive and intuitive to the needs of my aunt, both before she moved to assisted living and after. I recognize relatively quickly what will help Arlene be more comfortable, what words to say to calm her down when she becomes overwhelmed or frightened or confused.

Sure, being her nephew and knowing her quirks after 50-plus years, played a large role, but I really feel that the year I spent walking and bathing and feeding the senior dogs at Muttville widened my empathetic world view. It transitioned me from a full-time navel-gazer to part-time.

The day before I left my aunt’s assisted living facility was Super Bowl Sunday. The main activities room was decorated with cardboard footballs, flags for both the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, and streamers hanging from the ceiling. They served nachos and mini hotdogs in buns and two-buck-chuck chardonnay and cabernet. The room was filled with residents ready to watch the big game.

My aunt and I included.

By this point, I’d been at Hillcrest for six days. I felt like I’d done just about everything I could to set my aunt up for care and recovery when I left for home.

But I was fried. I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept in a bed in almost a week. I’d been keeping my emotions in check, focused only on the long list of what needed to get done to keep my aunt from ending up in the hospital again, or worse, a nursing home.

After halftime, the activities room was only half-full. All the food and booze were gone. Only the real football fans were left.

I was antsy and constantly getting up to check my phone for any new email or texts. When I returned to the main room sometime in the 3rd quarter of the game, a commercial began to play on the TV.

If you haven’t seen it yet, click above.

The ad begins with a young girl being given a chocolate lab puppy for her birthday. She whispers “I'll always take care of you” into its floppy brown ear. The clip then becomes a montage of the girl getting older, graduating high school, going off to college, getting married, and having a baby of her own.

As we see her reaching these iconic life milestones, we also see the dog aging, getting older and slower, his muzzle grayer. He’s clearly nearing the end of his physical life.

Like I mentioned earlier, I can be Superman when necessary but my kryptonite is dog videos.

I stood in the doorway of the activities room, tears streaming down my face. Fucking dog commercial! No way could I come sit down and watch the rest of the game.

I was so close to keeping it together! Only twelve more hours before I would be driving home.

I didn’t want anyone to see my blubbering so I quietly snuck out of the facility, and into the cool evening air. I took a long walk around the block and sobbed like a baby, releasing a week’s worth — or more likely a few years’ worth — of emotional build-up. Sure, there was an element of literally thinking about my own dog, Bernie, who at almost 7, is certainly slowing down. Part of it was missing him and my wife dearly. The largest bit, perhaps, was relief tears, of finally seeing light at the end of this particular care-giving tunnel.

I love that in all 3 versions of “Forever Young” the message is never one of denying our aging process. Though the title begs to differ, none of the songs are saying “I wish I/we/you would stay youthful forever.”

In Rod Stewart’s version he says:

And when you finally fly away I'll be hopin' that I served you well
For all the wisdom of a lifetime no one can ever tell

And in Dylan’s, he says:

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you

There is no grasping from these father figures. No wanting their innocent youngsters to remain innocent and young.

It’s hard to watch the people and animals we love get older and lose their ability to care for themselves. We can’t help but replay in our heads the times when they were younger, closer to the beginning or middle years of the life cycle.

Alphaville’s “Forever Young,” if taken out of its cold-war context, can be taken to mean: “Don’t waste your youth, because you are only on this planet for a short time.” A live life to its fullest message.

A message all three “Forever Young” songs, at their core, proclaim.

A message which I can always use a reminder.

I like to leave this spot in the newsletter to provide a discussion prompt, but I don’t really know what to suggest.

Do any of the three “Forever Young” songs have a personal connection for you? I’m sure there are other “Forever Young” songs out there that I’m overlooking. Is there one you want to give a shout out for?

As always, thanks for reading.

Steve