SILVER THREADS AMONG THE GOLD - chords and comments

At the bottom you'll find a link to the complete lyrics.

This song was among the first acoustic recorded ones ever; first time by Richard Jose in 1903. Today nobody's able to count the releases, translated into several languages, given various lyrics and performed by opera singers as well as rock stars and barbershop artists. The first one I heard, was a norwegian version from -55, sung by Olav Werner - in fact a native of my present domicile Geithus, Modum - from a radio request programme I used to listen to as a child. Today I'm old enough to sing it myself ...
It was written back in 1873, by Hart Pease Danks who ordered lyrics from Eben Eugene Rexford, at that time going to college. Rexford sent 9 lyrics; 6 were used and he got paid 18$. Among them were a revised lyric he wrote at the age of eighteen: "Growing Old".
The song is definitively a "prune": sticky and soaked with sentimentality. But the melody is a masterpiece, and the lyrics? We are talking about love until death us apart. Anything else is just desire.

C       G6   G7      C
darling I am growing old
G         G7              C
silver threads among the gold
C       G6      G7    C
shine upon my brow today
G        G7           C
life is fading fast away
G       G7               C       A7
but my darling you will be  will be
Dm      D7               G ... B+
always young and fair to me
C       G7               C
yes my darling you will be
G       G7               C
always young and fair to me