Nick Lowe Ponders His Mortality in 'Checkout Time'

Click here to listen to Nick Lowe's "Checkout Time"

"I'm 61 years old now / Lord, I never thought I'd see 30," veteran songwriter Nick Lowe sings on "Checkout Time," a cut from his 13th studio album The Old Magic. The country-tinged tune finds Lowe pondering his mortality and figuring out what to do with the rest of his life before it's "checkout time." Lowe remains one of the sharpest lyricists in rock, with a talent for penning sharp, thoughtful lines that have a light, conversational tone. The Old Magic won't be in shops until September 13th, but you can preview the record by streaming "Checkout Time" now.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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