Paul Simon released this song in 1990, when he was 49 years old.
"Sonny," an alter ego for Paul Simon himself, is a typical middle-aged American who's always had a pleasant, happy, prosperous life, but who's starting to realize that he's getting old, and to think about his own mortality.
Up to now, he's been able to push aside unpleasant thoughts like that. He used to tell himself he was still young and had many years ahead of him... but now, he realizes that his hair is thinning and some of his old schoolmates are already dead, and he's ready to face reality- "I'm aging, I'll be dead one day soon... why deny the obvious?"
