"Forever Young? In Some Ways, Yes"

"John Lennon would have turned 70 last October; Joan Baez had her 70th birthday in January; Paul Simon and George Clinton will reach 70 before the end of this year. Next year, the club of legendary pop septuagenarians will grow to include Paul McCartney, Aretha Franklin, Carole King, Brian Wilson and Lou Reed. Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia would have also been 70 in 2012.

Perhaps this wave of 70th birthdays is mere coincidence. There are, after all, lots of notable people of all ages. But I suspect that the explanation for this striking cluster of musical talent lies in a critical fact of biography: all those artists turned 14 around 1955 and 1956, when rock ’n’ roll was first erupting. Those 14th birthdays were the truly historic ones."

"Whatever we’ll be celebrating as the legacy of the 70-year-olds of 2067, it will surely belong to the 14-year-olds of 2011."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/opinion/24hajdu.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss