Baby Boomers are starting to really show their age: OPINION

JIMMY Barnes and Rod Stewart have mostly lost their roar and now channel Frank Sinatra, singing songs our parents listened to dancing cheek to cheek.

Cold Chisel

THE Baby Boomers are getting on.

Kids born post-Second World War, a generation famous for getting what they want and getting it NOW, are starting to age, and a lot of them aren't happy about it - myself included.

I just scrape into that category.

This broad cultural group has grown up largely in a time of affluence, apart from the odd 'market correction' that curbed lifestyles for a nanosecond.

What happens now this generation is at the stage where some of us leave our homes for life in a retirement village or (gulp) 'care facility'? At the very least, we're going to demand NBN with unlimited data, a media room with a smart television, a Netflix account and a kitchenette full of stainless steel appliances.

The legendary rockers of my youth have started to die, although some of them, like the Rolling Stones, just resemble a cadaver (Keith, I'm looking at you). Frank Zappa died of prostate cancer at the age of 52. Having led a life free of drugs and alcohol, how sad it was he died of what is generally considered - wrongly - to be an old man's disease. Alice Cooper (no relation), legendary dark man of rock'n'roll, is more fond of golf than Goth these days. Yes, golf.

Jimmy Barnes and Rod Stewart have mostly lost their roar and now channel Frank Sinatra, singing songs our parents listened to dancing cheek to cheek.

A lot of Baby Boomers, privileged as most of us were, were politically aware while we were still relatively young. We introduced older generations to anti-war rallies, protest marches and denim as an enduring fashion statement.

We adopted brand-name jeans as our unofficial uniform, and an awful lot of us have clung to them, kicking and screaming, as our rear ends and waists have broadened with age.

Not to be put off, jean manufacturers have adjusted the sizes accordingly.

We have also managed to embrace new technology with fervour, even if we do occasionally have to ask our teenaged daughter or (yikes) grandson for help casting from a tablet (yes, that's a thing).

The pop songs that emerged in the 60s became the anthems of those years. Protest songs were also popular, songs by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Marvin Gaye and Peter, Paul and Mary among others.

Listening to them now, I can't help but notice how the lyrics have dated. New threats have emerged for Gen X-ers and Y-ers, spawning a new range of protests.

Let's face it, fellow Baby Boomers: the answer, my friend, is no longer blowin' in the wind; the answer is in Google and Wikipedia.