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Read the original blog post5.55am
31 March 2008
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Recorded: November 1980
Producers: John Lennon, Yoko Ono
Released: 23 January 1984
John Lennon: vocals, piano
Available on:
Milk And Honey
John Lennon Anthology
Wonsaponatime
Based on a poem by Robert Browning, Grow Old With Me was one of John Lennon 's final recordings. It was released on the posthumous 1984 collection Milk And Honey .
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5.47pm
18 April 2013
Offline Looks like Paul and Ringo covered this:
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11.41am
28 March 2014
Offline What a shame....The man, the Legend deserved to grow old! 
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8.38am
Reviewers
17 December 2012
Offline As @Joe notes in his article about this song, it was partly inspired by John watching a movie about baseball:
Later that day Lennon called Ono to say he had been watching a 1950s film about a baseball player, in which the player's girlfriend had sent him a poem by Robert Browning. Lennon hurriedly wrote Grow Old With Me based on the words, which were taken from the poem Rabbi Ben Ezra.
Which film it was was unknown, but it seems Beatles scholar Kenneth Womack has identified the film: discovering a 1978 made-for-TV movie called A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story was shown on TV in Bermuda while John was there and the song was written.
Womack told the Observer that Lennon had clearly been moved by a scene in which Eleanor – played by Blythe Danner – reads a letter in which Gehrig referred to the first lines from Rabbi Ben Ezra, Browning’s 1864 historical poem inspired by a 12th-century scholar.
"Thanks very much for sending me that book of poems. I especially liked the one by Robert Browning that goes, 'Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be'…"
More here.
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12.02pm
Moderators
15 February 2015
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Browning is nice 🙂 and I do love this song. I just love the idea of loving someone enough to want to spend your twilight years with them, being boring but content. Very wholesome. 
In context, obviously, it's quite heartbreaking 
It verges from the sublime to the ridiculote
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5.13pm
2 May 2013
Offline Makes a grown man sob uncontrollably and wonder "What if?". Cuts to the quick. The single-tracked, solo piano demo is the best version IMO, the acoustic guitar demo has a different feel somehow. Whatever has been added on Milk And Honey simply doesn't work and detracts, although the version with George Martin's orchestration does and keeps the heart-rending feel of the piano demo in place. I like Ringo's cover too, thought the fact that Paul joined him was a lovely touch, and kept much of the intended feeling. Nicely understated and not played to (sometimes intended, sometimes not) comic effect as many of Ringo's songs can come across like due to his lugubrious voice, it sounds heartfelt and beautifully contained, coming across like a tribute. Shame the Threetles chose not to tackle it seeing as how George Martin managed to make something of the demo.
9.49pm
14 June 2016
Offline Old Soak said
Makes a grown man sob uncontrollably and wonder "What if?". Cuts to the quick. The single-tracked, solo piano demo is the best version IMO, the acoustic guitar demo has a different feel somehow. Whatever has been added on Milk And Honey simply doesn't work and detracts, although the version with George Martin's orchestration does and keeps the heart-rending feel of the piano demo in place. I like Ringo's cover too, thought the fact that Paul joined him was a lovely touch, and kept much of the intended feeling. Nicely understated and not played to (sometimes intended, sometimes not) comic effect as many of Ringo's songs can come across like due to his lugubrious voice, it sounds heartfelt and beautifully contained, coming across like a tribute. Shame the Threetles chose not to tackle it seeing as how George Martin managed to make something of the demo.
Here are those versions for reference
Milk And Honey Version
Anthology Version (With George Martin Orchestration)
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"Sometimes I wish I was just George Harrison" - John Lennon
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