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 * FOREVER YOUNG **



//"He spoke of the seventy years in which he had not known love. . . But now he needed something different: intimacy, closeness, youth." // //-Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart //

media type="youtube" key="9sldgunY3Fw" height="390" width="480" Bob Dylan, one of the most influential musicians of the latter half of the past century, wrote this song, "Forever Young," in 1974. The first lyrics are:

May God bless and keep you always May your wishes all come true May you always do for others And let others do for you May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young May you stay forever young.

Above all else that he wishes for the listener, he emphasizes youth. It seems generally accepted by most Americans that youth is the most important thing in life.

=Age Looking Back at Its Youth= By [| John M. Ridland]

// We had so little, yet we had so much: // // Thunder and lightning at the lightest touch. //

What the poet does here is to romanticize youth. He recognizes that he didn't have much in the way of material wealth, but says also that that did not matter to him as a child. All that mattered was his wonder and his imagined power.

Click here for a reflection on youth in America!