"We set controls for the heart of the sun," goes what may be my favorite song from this year, "One of the ways that we show our age." The song is "All My Friends", by LCD Soundsystem, found on their album The Sound of Silver. On the All My Friends EP, released a couple of months after the LP, there's a cover of the song by John Cale, which I think I've played even more than the original. When the Pink Floyd song "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" came out in 1968, Cale was 26, already old enough to know that the Floyd, for all their virtues, were also a little silly. So he brings something special to the table, something I'll get into in a moment. But first, a quick word about the song's structure.

"All My Friends" is built with two chords, which is important. When a song has two chords, it's about asking a question in one line and then seeing if it can be answered in the next. "All My Friends" rocks back and forth: Sometimes the world is like this, the first line asks (chord change) and then sometimes the world is like this. A two-chord song can go for a long time without getting dull because it's not dependent on surprise. Which is why LCD's and Cale's versions-- both seven-and-a-half minutes-- fly by. The strength of "All My Friends" is such that I often listen to LCD and Cale back-to-back, elongating those two chords-- the chords that hold everything-- into a quarter-hour. First LCD (it's like this) and then Cale (it's also like this).

"All My Friends" is a song about a few things, but mostly, as the above line above illustrates, it's about aging. Which makes it fertile territory for a John Cale cover. He seemed older and wiser pretty much from the moment he first came on the scene in the 1960s. By the time he started playing rock music with the Velvet Underground, he'd already befriended composer Aaron Copeland and played with La Monte Young and Tony Conrad in the Theater of Eternal Music. He was born within a week of Lou Reed in 1942, but he seemed above this kid's music, somehow. Whenever you hear that Cale produced a record-- Nico, Modern Lovers, the Stooges, Patti Smith -- you figure he was there in part to make sure these immature artists stayed on track. Dude had his share of problems, for sure, but he's serious. Look at his face. Plus, he's Welsh.

So, obviously, that's what Cale brings: gravitas. When James Murphy sings about all his friends, he's singing about freedom. To "be with my friends tonight" is to escape for a moment the banal responsibilities of adulthood. But Cale's friends are different. He sings about friends like they're people that would lay down their lives for him. These are friends that understand that stakes are high and the end is always near. They know something about life or they sure as hell wouldn't be hanging out with John Cale.

James Murphy's vocal on the original is terrific, and his singing is heartfelt, but Cale has a different quality. He sounds impatient, weary-- like he's cutting through the crap. He's got no time for niceties or cutesiness or referencing. He's got to get this thing over with; he's got shit to take care of. So he barrels through the middle of the song without worrying that his voice sounds flat and his accent sometimes sounds a little funny on the words he didn't write. Cale's performance encapsulates something we hope for from older performers: He sounds experienced and learned but still tough. These are qualities we hope will offset some of the obvious advantages of youth (though James Murphy, especially by indie rock standards, is not a young man, which is why he wrote the song in the first place). And in this case, his age helps him, rather brilliantly, to fulfill the song's potential.

But celebrating the old guy in the song about getting old feels a little dangerous. I may be a little cynical about it because I spend so much time listening to music by young people. For example, I dislike writing about the promotional process for music, because I doubt very much that most music listeners care about what comes in an envelope with a promotional CD. But I've noticed lately something that is by no means new but seems to be happening with more regularity. I get CDs in the mail with press releases that say something in the first line or two to the effect of, "This kid is only 19 years old." If a line like this ends up in the promo materials, it's meant as a selling point. I'm supposed to read that and think, "Wow, he's only 19, I better listen to this one-- that a musician so young is mature enough to make music as incredible as it is described here, that's rare."

Last year I wrote about a record called Tooth & Nail, by a band called Our Brother the Native, which came out on FatCat. Here was a band that seemed to take the three early, weird Animal Collective records as their primary inspiration, and the average age of the band members was 17. Was it amazing that three dudes who could just barely drive were recording darkly atmospheric junkyard folk and releasing it on one of the premier labels for experimental music? Sure. Was the music any good? Eh. It wasn't awful, but I haven't put it on since. But, you know, they're kids, we're told, and that's interesting.

The risk for publicists, of course, is that I might see their line and think, "He's 19? How he could he possibly have anything interesting to say?" But that would be stupid. Youth is something to be reckoned with, despite how often it's overplayed. We forget how young so many geniuses were when they made their mark. In 1905, when Einstein's annus mirabilis began, he was 25. One of my favorite things to do when a friend turns 30 is to say, "Well, you're now older than every member of the Beatles when they broke up." The implication being, "Remember what they did with their young adulthood? What the hell have you done with yours?"

When you're a kid, every time you have an idea, you think you're the first person in history to think it. There's serious power in this misconception. When you feel like all your thoughts are original, you burn to share them with the world. And then, it turns out, people with talent sometimes do have something unique and valuable to offer. And the fearlessness engendered by the cockiness that comes from youthful ignorance is what gets their ideas out there. That's how you get your Bob Dylans (he turned 25 a week after Blonde on Blonde came out). You get the feeling that maybe Jay-Z knows the "truth" that it's all been said. It may well be true, but it weighs down his art like an anchor. Meanwhile, Lil Wayne burns on.

So, then, could a kid have written "All My Friends"? We know there's no way he or she could have lived it, but that doesn't mean anything-- in art, you can pretend. Sure, yes, it's possible. Would the song mean as much to me if a 20-year-old had written it? That's a bit harder to answer, and maybe that's another reason I keep going back to Cale: His voice-- deep and husky, a bit weathered but still full of energy-- dashes that ambiguity. When he sings, "To tell you the truth, this could be the last time," the grain of his voice makes you believe it. That he can see the end clearly gives him insight into the present. That's how it starts.