Richard Starkey turned 80 about a week ago. I wasn’t paying attention at the time, but the ticking cosmic clock never quits. Yesterday I happened to listen to Peter Frampton‘s solo YouTube performance of “It Don’t Come Easy“, which was posted as a birthday greeting on 7.7.20. The 1971 song, first performed at the Concert for Bangladesh, was co-written by Starkey and George Harrison.

Four thoughts about the Frampton video: (1) This is not only the best cover version I’ve ever heard of “It Don’t Come Easy” but the best version ever, especially if you listen on headphones; (2) Frampton appears to be in excellent physical and spiritual shape but my God, he looked like a 16 year-old on that cover of “Frampton Comes Alive” (’76) and looked like a happy 40something in Almost Famous, but now he looks like his own grandfather; (3) The landscape outside Frampton’s apartment (or wherever he recorded the video) looks hellish — glass and steel high rises, busy highway, hazy smog; (4) Frampton has excellent teeth for a guy his age.