Lyrics to
Old Man

Released by Neil Young in 1972
From the Album: Harvest |

This version of Old Man was released by Neil Young in 1972.

Our Decade Lyrics Neil Young profile has all of the Old Man lyrics from 1972 and many more songs from the Neil Young discography that we have on file.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Neil Young or about the 1970s in general.

Old man look at my life,
I’m a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I’m a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life,
Twenty four
and there’s so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two.

Love lost, such a cost,
Give me things
that don’t get lost.
Like a coin that won’t get tossed
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I’m a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that’s true.

Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town.
Doesn’t mean that much to me
To mean that much to you.

I’ve been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I’m all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I’m a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that’s true.

Old man look at my life,
I’m a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I’m a lot like you were.


Neil Young has released many songs over the years besides Old Man. Neil Young released songs from 1969 to 2007 spanning across albums like Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Neil Young, After The Goldrush, Harvest, Journey Through The Past, Time Fades Away, On The Beach, Tonight's The Night, Zuma, Long May You Run, American Stars & Bars, Comes A Time, Rust Never Sleeps, Hawks And Doves, Re-ac-tor, Trans, Everybody's Rockin', Old Ways, Landing On Water, Life, This Note's For You, Eldorado, Freedom, Ragged Glory, Harvest Moon, Lucky Thirteen, Sleeps With Angels, Mirror Ball, Broken Arrow, Silver & Gold, Prairie Wind, and Chrome Dreams II. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Neil Young.

If you're a fan of 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1972 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Old Man by Neil Young

The lyrics to Old Man are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Neil Young used when the song was created in 1972. The lyrics to Old Man have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only Neil Young and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

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If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to Old Man by Neil Young. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Old Man" means the words set to the music of Old Man, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Neil Young. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Old Man and the lyrics to Old Man are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Neil Young who came here looking just for the lyrics to Old Man, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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