Among the tracks on Paul Weller’s 17th solo album, A Glimpse of You isn’t really a standout. It’s melodically pretty, but a bit slight; pleasant enough, but unlikely to elbow The Changingman or Broken Stones from the setlist when its author plays live. Yet A Glimpse of You still has the capacity to bring the longstanding Weller fan up short. It happens in the second verse, which appears to depict Weller settling down on a park bench to contemplate his own mortality. “Into the gardens in blooming May,” he sings, his voice sounding weathered. “I find a wooden seat where I can wait until the end of the world.”
To which the more casual listener might respond: so what? It’s a long time since anyone considered rock music exclusively a young person’s game; we’re used to music that reflects the artist’s age. But this is Paul Weller we’re talking about, a man who spent the early years of his career making an enormous song and dance about the importance of youth – “you better listen man, because the kids know where it’s at”, “life is a drink and you get drunk when you’re young”, “there should be a youth explosion”, “I want us to be like Peter Pan”, etc, etc – and indeed, expressing utter mortification at the very idea of growing old: “The man that you once loved is bald and fat-uh!” he snapped, on 1979’s Private Hell, as if hair loss and weight gain were a fate too horrific to countenance.
