Saturday Soundtrack: The Older I Get the More I Understand

Glenn Campbell didn't write this song, and he was the third to record it. But he is the one who made the song popular1n 1974. When I was a kid I didn't know what it was about. I thought it was a happy song about Porter Wagoner, the only person I'd ever seen dressed up in those sparkling cowboy suits. (My Dad liked watching the Porter Wagoner Show as well as Hee Haw on the television machine.) But it, really, isn't a happy song; beaten down by a life compromise and washed-away horizons, a man still harbors fantasies of fame, even thought he knows fame only brings "cards and letters from people I don't even know."