[...] Go down Manchester town
Can't navigate it
The club scene, man
You can't compare with it
One third of securities count
I can't understand that
Again
You're not real boy
I say you're not real boy
You're a gym (teacher)
You're a Cancer and I expect
A little shit
I'm a fifty year old man
And I like it
I got a three foot rock hard on
But I'm too busy to use it
I'm a fifty year old man
I'm a fifty year old man
What you gonna do about it? [...]
Mark E. Smith has been waiting his whole life to write "50 Year Old Man". It's the song he was born to sing, the song for which he's essentially spent an entire career spanning somewhere in the neighborhood of 26 studio albums rehearsing. Oh, he's written better songs -- loads of them -- but that's beside the point. This song, all 12 minutes of it, including the completely unexpected banjo solo, is basically Smith saying, "I'm old and I'm still playing in this warped, badass band making challenging music and fuck you if you think I'm going to stop." Never mind that 50 is hardly old these days, it's still glorious to hear him yelling, "I'm a 50-year-old man/ What're you gonna do about it." I expected him to tell younger bands to get off his lawn any minute. [...]
Joe Tangari, Pitchfork.
