Most Of All I Will Not Grow Up

How Frank Turner Helped Me Reconnect With Music

This essay was originally posted on my old Medium page in 2021.

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“I guess I should confess that I am starting to get old…”

That’s the opening line from Frank Turner’s “Photosynthesis.” It certainly got my attention when I first encountered the song, coming at the exact moment I most needed to hear it.

This was a few years after I gave up the ghost on my own music career. I was in my mid-30s back then, totally unsatisfied and ready for a change, but I still struggled with the decision for months. Music was the star at the center of my universe, and it was quickly going supernova.

It didn’t help that I’d embraced some self-destructive rock drummer cliches along the way. Those demons eventually got exorcized, but my lifelong connection to music seemed to have gone with them. As soon as I quit playing, I mostly stopped listening and actively avoided going to shows as well.

“All the latest music fads all passed me by and left me cold…”

Thankfully, that all changed when an old partner in crime convinced me to see Chuck Ragan’s Revival Tour in 2009. A mutual friend of ours was on the bill for the Los Angeles show. He insisted that we check it out and say hello.

I feebly tried to explain that I didn’t “really like music any more,” but my friend just laughed it off. So I laced up my old Converse sneakers, praying for the night to end before it even started. I was 40 going on 100.

The show’s impressive line up included a young, guitar-wielding punk who my buddy hyped as “the new Billy Bragg.” I seriously doubted that any musician could live up to that comparison, but he didn’t disappoint. I’ve been a Frank Turner fan ever since.

“All the kids are talking slang I won’t pretend to understand…”

The song that first caught my attention was, of course, “Photosynthesis.” It’s a freewheeling rant about the many downsides of growing up. Given my state of mind at the time, it’s easy to see how I got sucked in:

And it’s obvious my angry adolescent days are done
And I’m happy and I’m settled in the person I’ve become
But that doesn’t mean I’m settled up and sitting out the game
Time may change a lot but some things may stay the same

Against all odds, I was starting to enjoy myself at the show—which only made me more self-conscious. I remember glancing at my friend to see if he felt the same, but he looked totally relaxed. Same with everybody else around us. These new hang ups about music seemed to be mine alone. But why?

“And it’s obvious my angry adolescent days are done…”

It’s no secret that rock and roll is a young person’s game. I got the message loud and clear the first time I heard The Who’s “My Generation” (“I hope I die before I get old”), a biting sentiment that bands have echoed ever since—even as some of them keep touring well into their 70s and 80s.

More importantly, I knew it in my bones as a young musician. I’d seen plenty of older rockers standing at the backs of venues over the years, their arms folded and heads bobbing. Part of me always rooted for those dedicated scene vets, even though I swore up and down that I’d never join them:

Oh, but no one’s yet explained to me exactly what’s so great
About slaving 50 years away on something that you hate
About meekly shuffling down the path of mediocrity
Well, if that’s your road, then take it, but it’s not the road for me

But there I was, decades later, reluctantly lurking in the shadows of the El Rey Theatre. Then, about half way through Turner’s set, I slowly found myself locking into his music. His punk roots were showing through his singer/songwriter stance in a way that I could really appreciate.

It felt like a nagging knot in my soul had suddenly come undone. So, I sipped on an overpriced club soda with lime while a songwriter I’d never heard before preached exactly what I needed to hear.

“Time may change a lot but some things may stay the same…”

It dawned on me during the drive home that I’d been truly drawn in by new music for the first time in a few years. That a lifelong connection I’d turned my back on had been reestablished in some small way, even if I had to be dragged back to it kicking and screaming.

I downloaded Frank Turner’s latest album at the time, Love Ire & Song, when I got home that night and kept it on repeat for weeks. It’s a solid record all the way through, but I still come back to “Photosynthesis” most often.

And I won’t sit down, and I won’t shut up
And most of all I will not grow up

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Five Frank Turner Tracks You Should Hear:

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