Understanding getting and growing older from songs of yesteryears: a latent content analysis

ABSTRACT

Growing older is a natural occurrence experienced by all human beings, but a plurality of perspectives influences how understanding aging deviates in multiple context. Senescence now enthuses a profound substantiation to appreciate harmonious aging. Among the diverse corpora of data, songs are found to be useful in communicating, motivating and healing the aging population and accepting the aging process. This latent content analysis study purports to understand the portrayal of getting and growing older in a select group (n = 27) of songs yesteryears. Guided by Bengtsson’s (2016) processes of decontextualization, recontextualization, categorization and compilation, findings of this study revealed three interlocking concepts that typify getting and growing older, namely The Power of Suffering (Aging of the Heart), Power of Hoping (Aging with the Heart) and Power of Loving (Aging from the Heart). These latent messages found in the songs of yesteryears emphasize the immense significance of songs to facilitate communication, transitions and psycho-social connections essential to the aging process. As the aging population face the remaining years of their lives, findings of this study will add significance to the existing gerontological studies and serve as a harmonizing guide in aging education toward a balanced, optimistic and transcending growing older perspective.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).