When I'm 94

The younger — and, evidently, shorter — of the surviving Beatle Brothers, Sir  Paul McCarthy (pictured, second from left) is celebrating a birthday today and Yours Truly Dooley® can't help but wonder whether this music idol of advancing years — born June 18, 1942 — ever looks back with regret for penning "When I'm 64." As I Understand It™, the ditty was written when "Macc" was just 15 years old, in his mum and dad's sitting room in Liverpool, using only a slide whistle for accompaniment. 64 was surely an arbitrary number for the young lad, but if he'd somehow thought to make the 6 a 9, he’d have saved himself great misery later in life. He and his mates eventually recorded it for the “Sgt. Pepper’s” platter and 'twas only a matter of time before lusting ladybirds were shouting at the mop-topper while he was going about his business, “I’ll still need you, Paulie,” or “I’ll still feed you, Paul,” or “I’ll be giving you a Valentine alright, if you'll bring a bottle of wine 'round the flat when mum's away.” Perhaps it amused him for a time, but as he approached decade five or six, surely he'd had enough. If he'd have sung, “When I’m 94,” fans may well have ignored the notion, for who wants to tend to a bloody ninety year old? Alas, as fate would have it, when Sir Paul actually turned 64, the words he had written in his youth would come back to bite him, compliments of a she-devil named Heather Mills, the plus-sized, limb-compromised mother of his beloved daughter Beatrice, the wife who proved a bigger mistake than that Ebony & Ivory business back in the 80’s. We’re told that Ms. Mills took umbrage at the suggestion she would be needing and feeding an old codger who was losing his hair. Mills would maintain that she had no interest in "knitting sweaters by the fireside," whilst also refuting McCarthy’s claim that he was "doing the garden, digging the weeds." The two separated when McCarthy was 64, the final straw being the notion that Paul and Heather would be bouncing their grandchildren Vera, Chuck and Dave on their knees. "No grandchild of mine will be named Vera, Chuck or fooking Dave," said the witchy woman and that was the end of that tune. Happily, McCarthy has a more proper birthday tune in his catalog, one we'll imagine his lovely wifey #3 Nancy cheerfully singing to him in celebration today, along with all of us here at the station house: "You Say It's Your Birthday, Happy Birthday To You!"