Mick Jagger, Birthday Boy

By GAIL COLLINS, NYT

We interrupt our consideration of the profound political issues confronting America to point out that Mick Jagger just turned 70.

His birthday was Friday. Not much word on his emotions. Jagger did not twitter about it on his official site. So at least there’s that. Nothing is all bad if it avoids becoming a tweet.

Actually, it’s pretty clear that @MickJagger is handled by someone other than Mick himself. (“Our Hyde Park concerts have just gone live on iTunes! They were such such fun gigs, check it out!”) All his twittering is extremely dull.

If only our elected officials behaved more like Mick Jagger.

But about turning 70. A lot of the great stars of ’60s music were born during World War II, clocking in just ahead of the baby boom. So they’ve always been the senior citizens of their own, spectacularly youth-oriented generation. When they were young, they wrote songs about getting old. Paul McCartney was playful in “When I’m Sixty-Four.” Paul Simon was affectionate in “Old Friends,” when he mused “how terribly strange to be 70.”

(More here.)