The 500 - #127 - Younger Than Yesterday - The Byrds

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

---

Album: #127
Album Title: Younger Than Yesterday
Artist: The Byrds
Genre: Folk Rock, Country Rock, Psychedelic Rock
Recorded: Columbia Studios, Hollywood, California

Released: February, 1967

My age at release: 1
How familiar was I with it before this week: A few tracks
Is it on the 2020 list? No
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: My Back Pages

As I prepare to return to the classroom after a restorative and creative winter break, I’m reminded that January always feels like a fresh start...even though we’re already halfway through the school year.

Why? Because this time, planning feels different. In the summer, I’m guessing, imagining the learners I’ll meet based on experience teaching students of their age.

However, now, after months together, I know exactly who will be sitting in those desks. I know their quirks, their strengths and the challenges they are overcoming. More importantly, perhaps, they know me and are better prepared to respond to my expectations and the requirements of a middle school curriculum.

The Ontario Curriculum documents, that guide classroom instruction.

Together, we built something special in the first four months of the school year that started in September. It is a shared, collaborative, creative learning environment. And that changes everything. Preparation in January is not hypothetical; it’s personal. It’s about continuing a journey we’ve already started. I have prepared some (hopefully) engaging and exciting lessons and activities to kick off the first month of 2026, and I found myself reflecting on them while listening to Younger Than Yesterday, the fourth studio record by American folk rock band, The Byrds. In particular, their version of the song My Back Pages had me deep in thought during a long walk through a nearby wintery wood -(gotta burn off a few of those Christmas calories!).

Jacket sleeve for My Back Pages, by The Byrds.

Written and recorded by Bob Dylan for his 1964 record, Another Side Of Bob Dylan, the lyrics for My Back Pages are a philosophical meditation on the tension that comes between youthful certainty and the humility that arrives through life experience. The lyrics reflect on how convictions once held as absolutes can soften over time and how wisdom often comes when one embraces doubt and the complexities of life.

Album cover for Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964).

In the opening verse, Dylan layers vivid imagery of heat and fire to convey the intensity and impulsiveness of his youthful convictions. He wrote:

"Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rolling high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow."

Conversely, the song's refrain, Dylan pens the seemingly paradoxical line:

“I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now”,

These eleven words, which repeat throughout the song, capture an odd contradiction inherent in our chronological and philosophical growth. As we mature, we learn to accept doubt for what it is, and see the world in shades of gray, rather than in black and white truths. It  allows us to  become more curious, and less rigid than in our younger years.

For Dylan, these lyrics were a confession about his earlier ignorance and a realization that many of his previous songs and public statements came from a time when he was young and less open minded.

Bob Dylan.

According to lead guitarist and vocalist Jim McGuinn, in 1967 The Byrds re-recorded the song to  align with their evolving artistic direction and thinking. By then, they were moving away from pure folk-rock and starting to embrace a more introspective, psychedelic sound. Dylan's lyrics, and his growth as an artist, resonated with that shift.

The Byrds (1967) (l-r) Chris Hillman,David Crosby, 
Michael Clark and McGuinn. 

Among the activities I have planned for my students this month are several focused on critical thinking and media literacy skills. Like many educators, I recognize the teaching profession has a responsibility to help students navigate an information-overloaded  world in which truth and opinion often blur. The goal is for them to question sources, analyze bias, and consider how messages are constructed. Such skills are essential not only for academic success but for becoming thoughtful, informed citizens.

However, as I prepared my lessons, I reflected on Dylan's refrain in My Back Pages and affirmed to myself that making mistakes is part of the learning process. It is the path to making sound decisions.. . My young charges deserve the opportunity and time to wrestle with their own lack of knowledge, much like Dylan did in the mid-sixties. Intellectual growth doesn’t happen in a straight line; It happens through missteps, reflection, and recalibration. My role isn’t to drag them to the “right” answer but to shepherd them toward it.

One day, they’ll arrive at their own conclusions, not because I forced them down the best path, but because they discovered it themselves. And who knows, with the passage of time, the path of old may have become passe, replaced by a new, more fitting route. That’s when I’ll say to myself, once again:

"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now".