my my hey hey time passes by

Last year about this time I noticed how Neil Young's lyrics make for a good post.  His song "My My Hey Hey" was released in 1979 (there are actually two versions on the album on which it was released - I'm going to use the acoustic guitar version).

hey hey video phone before the internet

My my, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay

I wonder if that second line could be rewritten as:

Blogging is here to stay

Social media I'm sure will last as long as rock and roll.  Neil Young's song questions his own growing irrelevance. About that time punk rock was the fast growing thing.

It's better to burn out
Than to fade away

That became the most memorable and controversial line of his song.  After you work hard to make a mark, you don't want think about becoming obsolete.  Obsolescence and retirement are not a good mix but I suspect many fear it or at least think about it more during retirement.  

I'm easily distracted by good lyrics.  Let's look at a few more lines.  I plan for this post to slowly fade away with many revisions.

Out of the blue
and into the black
They give you this,
but you pay for that

Was Neil Young unaware of good return policies?

And once you're gone,
you can never come back

Now there's the important truth to remember if you're considering the earlier burn out idea.  He later said that the burn out line referred to the spirit of rock and roll not the performers.

The king is gone
but he's not forgotten.

I would rewrite that for blogging:

The king is gone
but his blog's not forgotten.

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye.

Just think, Neil wrote that last line decades before Facebook where there is more to a person than their profile picture.