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The goal of this site is to ensure that John Lennon’s ‘Grow Old With Me’ and its message of enduring love will see a “world without end.” My hope is that the song will continue to be played, appreciated, and covered by other artists for decades to come. I aim to contribute to accomplishing this by providing as much detail as I can about the song to inform, educate, and inspire others.

I recall first hearing John Lennon’s ‘Grow Old With Me’ as a 14-year old boy when I listened to the just-released album Milk and Honey on a turntable in my bedroom. I have been transfixed – I might even say obsessed – with the song ever since.

According to Yoko Ono, Lennon imagined ‘Grow Old With Me’ as “a standard, the kind that they would play in church every time a couple gets married.” Unfortunately, Lennon was never able to complete the song and see that dream become a reality. Personally, I have always been haunted by that. I consider ‘Grow Old With Me’ among Lennon’s very best songs but not necessarily given the recognition it deserves because it was unfinished.

However, in the decades since Lennon’s death, there have been scores of cover versions of ‘Grow Old With Me.’ I recall the first cover version I heard. It was played by a busker at the Park Street Red Line subway station in Boston in the ‘90s. Hers was as beautiful as any version I have ever heard.

Over the decades since Milk and Honey’s release, I have searched for new cover versions of ‘Grow Old With Me’ periodically. My goal has been to find a version that fully realizes the song as I hear Lennon imagining it.

Some cover versions of ‘Grow Old With Me’ lean in to the song’s sweeter sentiments, others into its religious implications. Still others offer the song’s pure pop appeal.

However, to my ear, as beautiful as many of these cover versions are, few capture both the grace and the grandeur that I hear in Lennon’s home demo. So I keep searching, waiting for Lennon’s song to be completed.

Perhaps that is just the way it is meant to be. Perhaps Lennon’s ‘Grow Old With Me’ will forever remain an unfinished masterpiece. Or – you may say I’m a dreamer – perhaps one day that will change and there will be a more fully realized, definitive version of the song. (Aside: I do believe that the version released on Gimme Some Truth: The Ultimate Mixes in 2020 is a huge step in that direction.)

It’s also possible that wanting and waiting for a fully realized version Lennon’s of ‘Grow Old With Me’ has entirely missed the point. The message of ‘Grow Old With Me,’ to me, is that love endures and, in fact, transcends death. In that regard, Lennon not finishing ‘Grow Old With Me’ before he died is of little consequence. The song and its message of love have and will endure.

One only needs to peruse YouTube to see all the people playing ‘Grow Old With Me’ at their weddings to grasp how significant the song has been to so many people. Or search Instagram and see the hundreds of videos of the song playing with images of couples. In that respect, ‘Grow Old With Me’ has in fact become the standard that Lennon envisioned.

Yoko Ono said of Lennon in the 1984 documentary ‘Then and Now,’ “He’s still with us. His spirit will go on. You can’t kill a person that easily.”

That is as true more than 40 years later as it was then. In that way, it seems certain that John Lennon’s ‘Grow Old With Me’ and his message of enduring love will continue and see a “world without end,“ finished or not.

Sean P. Sullivan, July 2025