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Last Monday, October 9th, would have been John Lennon’s 77th birthday. Today, October 14th, is my 33rd anniversary.

I’ve decided to combine the two events with today’s SotW, “Grow Old with Me,” by Lennon.

This is one of the last songs he wrote and recorded as a demo before being murdered in 1980. For several years it was only heard by fans who sought out bootleg recordings. But the song was given an official release on 1984’s Milk and Honey album, albeit in the original demo form.

According to Wikipedia:

The song was inspired from two different sources: from a poem penned by Robert Browning titled “Rabbi ben Ezra” and a song by Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono called “Let Me Count the Ways” (which in turn had been inspired from a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning).

Lennon and Ono had for some time admired the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, and the two songs were purposely written with the couple in mind.

Ono woke up one morning in the summer of 1980 with the music of “Let Me Count the Ways” in her head and promptly rang Lennon in Bermuda to play it for him. Lennon loved the song and Ono then suggested to him that he should write a Robert Browning piece to accompany it. That afternoon, John was watching TV when a film came on which had the poem “Rabbi Ben Ezra” by Robert Browning in it. Inspired by this turn of events, Lennon wrote “Grow Old with Me” as an answer to Ono’s song, and rang her back to play it to her over the phone.

The song was later covered by Mary Chapin Carpenter and the late Glen Campbell.

Enjoy… until next week.