Origins and Inspiration
The song was inspired from two different sources: from a poem penned by Robert Browning entitled "Rabbi Ben Ezra" and a song by Lennon's wife Yoko Ono called "Let Me Count the Ways" (which in turn had been inspired from a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning).
Lennon and Ono had for some time admired the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, and the two songs were purposely written with the couple in mind.
Ono woke up one morning in the summer of 1980 with the music of "Let Me Count the Ways" in her head and promptly rang Lennon in Bermuda to play it for him. Lennon loved the song and Ono then suggested to him that he should write a Robert Browning piece to accompany it. That afternoon, John was watching TV when a film came on which had the poem "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning in it. Inspired by this turn of events, Lennon wrote "Grow Old With Me" as an answer to Ono's song, and rang her back to play it to her over the phone.
Read more about this topic: Grow Old With Me
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“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
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—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)