Music Review // Sarah Segal-Lazar "Anything But Age"

 

With soft acoustics, this song by Sarah Segal-Lazar starts and has this very light drumming keeping the beat steadily behind it.  This all kicks in, sort of, as it can become both dreamy and somewhat of that country twang.  "Anything But Age" reminds me musically of a song from an artist such as Mazzy Star or Sheryl Crow, but somehow Sarah Segal-Lazar manages to put her own spin on it.  

Lyrically, "Anything But Age" opens with a verse which has the lines "And as your beard grew longer / And wrinkles waged war on your face" and this makes me feel like this song is about a father figure.  Lines like "And you proved you were different / By hanging around" might mean it's a step father type of situation, but still, it's not always about blood with who raised you.  And as the song discusses age in the title I would think that also implies it's about someone older as well.

Further backing up my belief that this song is about a father just doing their best is the music video which feels like old footage from home movies, most of which is spent skiing.  We can look back fondly at our childhood (or not) but the funny thing is, there is a certain age such as my parents and even my generation that don't have video to look back on as kids because not everyone had an iPhone.   Still, seeing these old home movies in this music video I feel like I know exactly what they are about.

The idea of the title of the song is that this person, who I believe to be the father, tells her "You know that I can't give you anything but age".   This might feel like the father saying they don't have much to offer, but at the same time, with that age comes experience.  Sometimes being a role model means taking a do as I say not as I do stance, if you think you're not going to be helpful you still can be.   I hope that both children and parents alike can listen to song and really take something from it because we're all just ultimately trying our best.