Songs: 20 Things To Do Before You're 30

notes / gigs / releases

Learn another language
Do a bungee jump
Sort out your pension
And love like nobody's ever loved
Swim with dolphins
Have a business of your own
Write a novel
Climb Mount Kilimanjaro

If you're under thirty
Lucky you
But I'd suggest your time's best spent
Not trying to improve

With 20 Things To Do Before You're 30
What a crock of shit
20 Things To Do Before You're 30
Here's a better bucket list

Smoke bananas
Fall asleep on a train
Get so drunk that you
Hallucinate
Go out with someone awful
Be friends with gits
Dye your hair, shave your head,
Go for lunch and come back pissed

Go to house parties
Get into debt
Take laxatives to try and lose weight
Smoke cigarettes in bed

20 Things To Do Before You're 30
This is not a plan
20 Things To Do Before You're 30
Options, not demands

Experiment with chilli sauce
Grow a beard
Wear a long black leather jacket
And pretend that you are weird
Set fire to the oven
Forget to do Christmas cards
Drink cocktails, go to Launderettes
And pay for milk with a credit card

'Cause when you're well past 30
And you look back
You don't want to be thinking how cool you were
You want to think "What a twat!"

20 Things To Do Before You're 30
This is not advice
20 Things To Do Before You're 30
'Cause in later life

You'll be busy eating shortbread
And collecting Allen Keys
If you're wide awake at 4am
You'll be going for a wee
You'll live in mortal fear
Of having to buy shoes
If you're seeing something at 10pm
It'll be the news

But whatever happens
You can relax
Safe in the knowledge that you don't have to do
Any of the crap

Of 20 Things To Do Before You're 30
No thanks, you're all right
20 Things To Do Before You're 30
No longer apply
20 Things To Do Before You're 30

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

Whenever I see a list of "Things To Do Before You're 30" it's always a list of bloody stupid things, like writing a novel or travelling to somewhere. Travelling anywhere is the very last thing you should do in your twenties - you haven't got any money and you are basically an idiot who will get it completely wrong. Far better to wait until you're older - when you have a bit of spare cash and also a clue - to do that, and instead spend your youth doing stuff like snogging and drinking and staying up late i.e. things that you will not be able to do half as much or as well when you get to my age!

The idea to write a song on this theme came about during the start of my MA at City University, when I suddenly found myself talking on a regular basis to people considerably younger than me, and I found myself giving Wise Counsel (whether it was asked for or not), telling them not to worry about climbing some silly old mountain and to concentrate on having fun instead. I stand by this advice!

When the song was finished I wondered how many "things to do" I'd put into it, and was delighted to find that it's actually twenty. I wish I could say that that was on purpose, but I can only assume that The Gods Of ROCK were guiding my subconscious mind. I've actually only done 14 of them myself - I've never smoked bananas, messed around with my hair, taken laxatives, forgotten Christmas cards (the very idea!) or used a credit card for minor groceries, although I very much people who have. I've done all of the recommendations (although my long black coat was velvet, which is probably worse) but the only item in the first verse that I've managed is to get a pension. Maybe that's the reason I got so annoyed about it?