This complicated and strange project began innocently enough when I decided to make a mix CD for my friend’s birthday and went searching for relevant songs. But ‘songs about turning xx years old’ turns out not to be a very straightforward thing to search for. So after burning the CD I was left with a burning question: why had I found so few songs? In this blog post, I look at which ages get sung about and which don’t, and I present a comprehensive list of 189 songs that mention being a specific age. You can download the list here, and below, I go into more detail on three points:
1) How a surprisingly thorny measurement problem was resolved.
2) Some (younger) ages get mentioned in dozens of songs, other (older) ages are barely referenced. I examine these trends quantitatively and compare them to other trends, like how political stances change with age.
3) Quite frankly, it’s impossible to assemble a list like this and not notice that a lot of the lyrics involve older men talking about younger women in a – what seems to me at least – creepy way.
Ben is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at Knox College. He received his PhD in Political Science from Binghamton University in 2014. Ben was previously a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and previously held a research position in the Department of Political Science at Fordham University. His research and teaching interests are centered around parties and interest groups, particularly those from under-represented constituencies. A great deal of his work deals with the political organizations of the environmental movement. He studies both American and Comparative politics.
