PROMOTION & RECEPTION

‘Grow Old With Me’ was considered for a single. However, it was never issued.

In 1984, Stanley Dorfman directed a music video for the song. The video featured home movies of Lennon and Yoko Ono walking in Central Park, dancing, and other intimate moments from Lennon's personal film archive. The video had its world premiere Sunday, June 3, 1984 on MTV. It was shown as part of a 26-minute program devoted to the Milk and Honey album. The video for the song was subsequently contained on the 1992 release The John Lennon Video Collection, with slight alterations.

Shortly before the release of Milk and Honey, Yoko Ono commissioned 70 hand-crafted wood boxes made of Bermuda cedar as Christmas presents for friends and "a select few radio and music personalities." The boxes had an engraved silver plaque that read "MILK & HONEY, LOVE, YOKO & SEAN, XMAS '83, N.Y.C." The box contained a cassette player that played the home recording of Lennon singing ‘Grow Old With Me.’[1]

Over the years, the ‘Grow Old With Me’ song title as well as a Lennon illustration have been used on various ephemera. These include a coffee cup and a neck tie. Ono used such a cup during at least one interview.[2]

The coffee cup was originally sold with a black and white illustration, which was subsequently colorized. The latter was made by Marigold Enterprises, LTD, N.Y.C. The tie, which said ‘Grow Old With Me’ on the back, came in several colors. The illustration of Lennon and Ono embracing was also used as the title page of the Bag One exhibit booklet in 1970.

John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics of ‘Grow Old With Me’ were among the 30 song manuscripts that Yoko Ono has published since 1995 via Bag One Arts. The lyrics were printed via silkscreen on Woollfitts watercolour paper, with a numbered edition of 1,000.

A ‘Grow Old With Me’ silver ring was also part of The John Lennon Jewelry Collection. The ring was made by JewelAmerica, Inc.

The reception to ‘Grow Old With Me’ on release was generally positive. Rolling Stone critic Don Shewey said that the song had the "stately feel of 'Imagine'" but noted that it was unlikely to become the standard Lennon hoped. Melody Maker said "'Grow Old With Me' would surely have been destined to become Lennon's 'Mull of Kintyre.'" New Musical Express said the song was "The LP's most moving moment." The New York Times called it a "moving final testament."

The Los Angeles Times called it “the album's most striking number.” In a subsequent review, the Times called it “a disarming love song with a trace of the classic feel of Lennon's haunting ‘Imagine.’” The author continued, “While one would like to hear the song with all the musical punctuation that Lennon envisioned, the fact that we are left with this primitive track serves as a moving reminder of how savagely Lennon's loss interrupted the endearing musical journey he had been taking us on for so long.”

The Boston Globe called it “simply breathtaking.” The Windsor Star said it was “the centrepiece of the album, stark but beautiful.” The Chicago Tribune wrote, “when Lennon sings "Grow Old With Me," the listener hears his unadorned, solo voice singing an ode to a long-term love Lennon would never enjoy.”

The New York Daily News said it was one of Lennon’s “most haunting” songs, noting that it had “the eerie feel of a crackly old 78, a voice from another world.” The Evening Sun (Baltimore) said, “…it's a beautiful song and may stand alongside his most moving compositions.”

In 2007, Paste Magazine called the song "beautifully ragged." The author said of Lennon "His songs, and his lyrics – from "God is a concept by which we measure our pain," on his first solo album to "God bless our love," on his last one – form one long narrative." 

In 2010, in the liner notes to the reissued Milk and Honey, Paul Du Noyer wrote of ‘Grow Old With Me’ and ‘Let Me Count the Ways’: "They hold the record in some place out of chronological time, eternally hopeful." DuNoyer continued, "The sad irony of 'Grow Old With Me' need not be labored... (Lennon's) vocal has the natural intimacy that further studio treatment might have obscured."  

In 2013, Ultimate Classic Rock critic Stephen Lewis rated ‘Grow Old with Me’ as Lennon's 2nd greatest solo love song, calling it "as sparse and soul-baring as anything Lennon had done since 1970's Plastic Ono Band.”

In 2021, Rip Rense wrote that "Grow Old with Me" was "one of (Lennon's) most loved works." He also noted that, “Despite Starr splendidly recording the song (and enlisting Paul to play on it), and despite the attempt to improve it on Lennon: Gimme Some Truth, and despite: George Martin’s fine arrangement, Douglas/Cole’s fine arrangement, Joe Walsh’s gentle guitar solo on the Ringo version, and all good intentions by all concerned, it still feels like a song in search of a finished production."

In 2024, Far Out critic Tim Coffman rated it as Lennon's 3rd greatest deep cut, calling it "one of his most stunning ballads, having the same emotional vulnerability of his last album with a Beatles-esque melody behind it."

[1] Coleman, Ray. John Ono Lennon The Definitive Biography Volume 2: 1967-1980. Sidgwick and Jackson. 1984. p. 268.

[2] If Lennon could only imagine what’s happened in 10 years. Vicksburg Post (via Associated Press). Dec 2, 1990. p42.