The writing’s on the wall, Wanda
Come read it come see what I say

These two performances encapsulate perfectly what aging is; in what ways it matters and what ways hit don’t.

I suggest you turn on the closed captioning so to get every subtle flavor of the lyric in both.

In the first, she is about 20.

In the second, somewhere in the vicinity of 80.

“For the love of God, you oughta take pity

on yourself.”

Well now a-course …

You can’t always get what you want my little hardheaded honey, or all of it, or exactly.

Maybe the process of Try Sometime doesn’t get you juiced up the way it used to, but I dunno nothing

About what to do
About that
From over here.

Over from this dish and side, I don’t need a guide.

I already know The Way. (Sometimes it gets so bad that I am the Way.)

It took me thirty-one and three-quarters years to become of age, become anything Of A Man at all.

And precisely that long all over again, to become what I am, which is a Lion with that very same Thorn in his bloody paw.

I’m afraid there’s no denyin. I’m just a dandy lion. But I know for sure that someday

Each rabbit shall show
Respect to me
The chipmunks gen-u-flect, to me
Though my tail shall lash
I will show Compash
to every living thing …

What makes a king, out of a slave? What makes a sign say
Burma Shave, what

makes The Dawn
come up like

thunder

Roll credits

Mebbe I’ll see you back here at this wall late tomorrow night