Last week the Tonight Show was in reruns, and one of the shows they replayed featured Jimmy Fallon and Neil Young singing Young’s “Old Man”. I saw it the first time it aired, and have watched the clip below probably a couple of dozen times since then. Maybe the shows producers saw the bit as a way to showcase Fallon’s eerie imitation of Young’s windblown, aching tenor, but it was so much more than that, whether it was intended to be or not.
Slate’s Forest Wickman thought so, too. He noted, “…this new duet, his first one with the real Neil Young, is almost poignant. Fallon’s abilities as a vocal chameleon—the T-1000 of comedy singing—sound just as uncanny when heard side-by-side with the genuine article, and when he sings ‘I’m a lot like you were’ next to the real Young, now 69 years old, it’s less funny than it is just a perfect moment.”
Click here to watch the video
Young was 27 when “Old Man” first released. The Source Of Usually-True Internet Knowledge, Wikipedia, says Young wrote the song 43 years ago about…
