From the recording Some Professional Help

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While some people only seem to relate to this at certain points in their lives, I have never been comfortable with my age. Like, really, never. I don’t think it’s really anyone’s fault but my own that I’ve always felt too young or too old. There is obviously nothing I can do about this other than write a song about it. I suppose in doing so, I came to a slightly better understanding that my problem is mostly with the I expectations I perceive others having of me unfounded and otherwise.

This song speaks for itself pretty well. I feel a bit self-conscious about the “yoo hoooo” after “I could talk to girls.” For the record, that’s not how I talk to girls, or women, or people in general. But I do fondly recall one of my friends in high school pointing out that my main pickup line was “Well hey!”

There is a bit of tongue-in-cheek self-promotion going on with the line, “I made mistakes but it didn’t take the cake in any way that got me paid.” I’ve always learned a lot from mistakes, but this also references my first solo album Scott Alexander Makes Mistakes (2004). I have grown a lot since then.



Daniel Blum- drums
Rick Corrigan- accordion 
Corey Johnson- mandolin
Lewis Patzner- cello
Scott Alexander- vocals and guitar
Recorded by Alberto Hernandez and Jesse Nichols at Fantasy Studios
Mixed by Jesse Nichols at Opus Studios
Mastered by A.T. Michael MacDonald at AlgoRhythms Mastering

Lyrics

When I was six years old I wanted to be ten
All the best toys in the catalogue said you had to be that old for them
Infants are the cutest. I’d surely outgrown that.
But I felt treated like a baby and enough is what I’d had.

Yet by the time that I’d turned nine I had to raise my sights
I needed to be in my teens so I could find myself a squeeze
Just like that and finally!
I could go out on my Friday nights.
The center of the universe was just a few years off
With a silver screen as my crystal ball, I knew by sixteen I’d have it all
I read tea leaves on the TV and I knew by sixteen I’d have it all

Before I knew it I could drive a car I could talk to girls and play guitar
While trapped inside the cage of my folks’ paranoid ways
High school was no escape as we were shackled to our social rank
and sentenced by a letter grade
So I’d focus on that GPA, get myself to college and get my way
Once I got to college, I’d have it made.

When i was twenty three I couldn’t shake the feeling that no one took me seriously
All that time and I’d still need a co-sign to start my life with two decades that had slipped by
I built up the birthdays but didn’t build a résumé
I made mistakes, but it didn’t take the cake in any way that got me paid
and so I’d have to wait for a few more years of experience
What’s a few more years of experience?

It’s no secret how time flies
But after that it finds a place to hide
Now my age is private
And I have to hope that no one finds it
If it means as much to them as it did to me back when
I was always discontent and I didn’t have the patience to get old

When I was not so old I wanted to be so
But I still do not want to be young
Just allowed to grow
I never cared for being young and now I can’t stand to feel too old
And in a few more years, this will still be so
All I ever wanted was to grow.