Amoeba’s Lorica: The Way We Were (and Aren’t)

So, this morning (18 November 2020), Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba was driving to work, listening to a classic rock radio station (we pause briefly while the Gen Z’ers do a websearch on ‘radio station’), and this song comes on. A 1970s-80s hard rock number. A paean to teenaged romantic angst, the stuck-pig squeal of discovery that you can’t have everything you want and get laid, all at the same time. Just like 17 out of every 10 songs from the classic rock era.

Usually, when such a song appears, YFNA turns the radio off. (Yes, dear reader, that does mean that he only listens to the radio for a few minutes at a time, not least because he also turns it off at the first hint of an oncoming commercial.) He does not understand how, fifty years later, anybody would wish to subject demself to reminiscences of desperate mating dances.

“Because we like to remember when we were [ahem] screwing around, Amoeba. What’s wrong with you?”

Not being able to un-remember, much less enjoy, the frustration, rejection, stupidity, worry, poverty, and shame that were most of what screwing around was about? Elements of youth that YFNA would just as soon leave in the past, along with youth itself (since he has to)? Look, if we insist on celebrating pain, can we at least make it relevant to now? Hm?


(With apologies to Holly Knight, Mike Chapman, and Pat Benatar)

We are old.
Backache to backache
We stand (on good days).
Medicine pills on demand.
Age is a battlefield.

Woe-woe-woe-woe-woe-woe-woe-woe-woe

We are old.
Can’t make you hear that I’m cold.
Golden years, bah! There’s no gold.
Insurance refusing;
Age is a battlefield.

Today my thumb works;
Tomorrow it won’t.
Always my hands hurt so bad!
I am sick of the quirks
Of the bod that says “don’t”,
This just makes me so mad!
The things that I used to do easily, now
Take more than I’ve got; to my frailties I bow.
Dammit!

We are old.
Backache to backache we stand.
Medicine pills on demand.
Age is a battlefield.

We are old.
Can’t make you hear that I’m cold.
Golden years, bah! There’s no gold.
Insurance refusing;
Age is a battlefield.

If I pass you your brace
Will you hand me my cane?
Or make me walk on my own?
When the prescriptions run dry
Will you fill them again?
Just how much do we owe??
The TV says Social Security’s bust.
The one thing I know is
A nap is a must.

We are old.
Backache to backache we stand.
Medicine pills on demand.
Age is a battlefield.

We are old.
Can’t make you hear that I’m cold.
Golden years, bah! There’s no gold.
Insurance refusing;
Age is a battlefield.

This entry was posted in Amoeba's Lorica, health, satire, We the People and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Amoeba’s Lorica: The Way We Were (and Aren’t)

  1. Tora says:

    Ha. Good one!

  2. Vanessa says:

    Well done. I even heard the music.

  3. Melli says:

    I was singing along! Great job!

  4. Quilly says:

    Then there’s the afternoon naps that keep dem awake all night.

Comments are closed.