"When I'm Sixty-Four"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I have an-other project like this based on Electric Light Orchestra, and I've (slowly) been going through their albums.  I just posted some notes about Face the Music, and I listened to a few songs from Sgt. Pepper to compare "Evil Woman" with "Fixing a Hole."  I also found a phrase in "Down Home Town" that's an astonishingly-well-crafted homage to "She Loves You" (it uses the same notes!).

In any case, since I was already listening to one Sgt. Pepper song, I added "When I'm Sixty-Four" to my now-playing list just for the sake of completing a bit more of my transcription.  I noticed a line in the second verse:  "Sunday mornings go for a ride."

It's not too spectacular by itself, but it has connections to two other Beatle songs - "Day Tripper" and "Two of Us" from Let It Be.  Back in February, I noticed that both contain the phrase "Sunday driver" (or "Sunday driving").  And now I've discovered that "When I'm Sixty-Four" has something similar.

Like I said back in February, it seems significant that the girl in "Day Tripper" goes on Sunday drives alone where the pair in "Two of Us" goes on them together.  The couple in "When I'm Sixty-Four" seems to fit into that paradigm too, aligning with the pair in "Two of Us."  It's unsurprising then that "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Two of Us" - with their similar views on Sunday driving - were both written by Paul McCartney.