On the prior post (OMG! It's ELO), a reader left a comment pointing out how Jeff Lynne was only 27 y.o. when he wrote ELO's classic hit, "Showdown." Impressive as that is, it got me thinking about other artists who wrote (or co-wrote) mega-classics all before the age of 30. Here are a few that come to mind:
Steve Winwood (21) - "Can't Find My Way Home"
Robby Krieger (20) - "Light My Fire"
George Harrison (26) - "Something"
Bob Dylan (21) - "Don't Think Twice It's Alright"
Eric Clapton (25) - "Layla" (w/ Jim Gordon)
Paul McCartney (22) - "Yesterday"
Billy Joel (28) - "Just the Way You Are"
Jimmy Page (26)/Robert Plant (22) - "Stairway to Heaven"
Donald Fagen (24)/Walter Becker (22) - "Reelin' in the Years"
Neil Young (24) - "Cowgirl in the Sand"
Robbie Robertson (26) - "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
I hope you are all now as depressed as I am after putting your lives in perspective.
Here is a great clip of Steely Dan performing their hit "Reelin' in the Years" from The Midnight Special (1973).
Editor's note: Part of the reason I chose this clip in particular is because of the individual introducing the band. This is why I love the 70's!
4 comments:
Disclaimer: by no means was my list an exhaustive list. In the spirit of brevity, there are many artists not included on the list (i.e. the various members of Pink Floyd, though Waters was already 30 when Dark Side was recorded). I simply went with whoever came to mind first (more contemporary artists like Kurt Cobain, etc. were also intentionally left off the list)
That being said, there is 1 person glaringly missing:
Van Morrison (25) - "Caravan"
-ds
i was just about to knock you guys for not listing VM. Recorded Astral Weeks, an album that if you told me was written by a 2000 year old sage, i would have agreed, was actually written and recorded at the ripe young age of 23.
F'n mindblowin.
ak
man, do i love this post.
i think least impressive on the list is Robby Krieger...while LMF is a classic, and will be for all time, the song does sound like it was written in the margins of a high school spiral notebook. rhyming liar with higher...eh...
George Harrison's something is impressive, Dylan's DTTIA at 21 is phenomenal, look at what else was written around the same time, blowin in the wind, a hard rain's gonna fall, master's of war...thats heavy sh*t for a 21 year old. perhaps only surpassed by turning 22 and writing times they are a changing, and the lonesome death of hattie carroll, which are feats of song writing that perhaps have never been matched, as songs, as social thermometers, as catalyst, as poetry, as story telling, just phenomenal. Its absurd what he did at that age. And we celebrate the Jersey Shore.
great great post.
amadeus mozart...twinkle twinkle little star...(age 5)
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