About The Song
Toby Keith hatched a plan for remaining forever young — in spirit, at least — with his song “Don’t Let the Old Man In.” Keith recorded this slow-moving acoustic ballad that soundtracks a scene in Clint Eastwood’s American crime drama film, The Mule, in 2018.
The song was almost immediately lauded as one of the finest of his career. But did you know Keith wrote “Don’t Let the Old Man In” based on something Eastwood said to him in the middle of a golf tournament?
Two days before the legendary actor’s 88th birthday, Clint Eastwood shared a golf cart with Toby Keith at Eastwood’s charity tournament in Pebble Beach, California.
“We were playing golf,” Keith recalled, “and he was telling me about how he was getting ready to shoot this movie about an old man that ran drugs for the cartel, tried to help his family, and tried to help his community. And I told him, somebody said you have a birthday coming up Monday. And Clint said, ‘Yeah, on Monday I turn 88.’” Keith then asked him how he would celebrate it, and Eastwood revealed he would be spending his special day shooting his movie called The Mule.
Keith was surprised by Eastwood’s relentless energy. At his age and prominence, Eastwood could easily have retired. He no longer had to make or appear in films anymore. Keith wondered where that sort of energy comes from, what keeps him going.
“He said, ‘I just get up every day and don’t let the old man in,’” Keith continued. “And instantly, I wanted to write a song about that. So, I came home, wrote it, sent it to him, and now it’s in the movie.”
The legendary singer did his best to put himself in the shoes of somebody three decades older than him and envisioned the person’s spirit in the song “Don’t Let the Old Man In.”
In what turned out to be one more stroke of serendipity, Keith was feeling unwell the day he was about to cut his demo. “I was sick as a dog that day. I was coughing and sneezing and thinking; this is terrible,” he remembered. “I gave it the best vocal I could that day, and I sent it off. It’s a real raspy, sleepy, tired, sick vocal. I said, ‘Well now you’ve got a reference, and I’ll go back and put a vocal on it for you.’”
Much to his surprise, Eastwood immediately called. “He said, ‘I’ve got a spot in the movie, and I’m putting it in there.’ And then Warner Bros. called asking did I read the script before I wrote this song because it fits perfectly.”
And to his even greater surprise, Eastwood did not want to change a single thing. “He wanted it sick and tired and dark like that,” Keith said. It turned out to be right in tune with that of the film.
Video
Lyrics
Don’t let the old man in
I wanna leave this alone
Can’t leave it up to him
He’s knocking on my door
And I knew all of my life
That someday it would end
Get up and go outside
Don’t let the old man in
Many moons I have lived
My body’s weathered and worn
Ask yourself how would you be
If you didn’t know the day you were born
Try to love on your wife
And stay close to your friends
Toast each sundown with wine
Don’t let the old man in
Many moons I have lived
My body’s weathered and worn
Ask yourself how would you be
If you didn’t know the day you were born
When he rides up on his horse
And you feel that cold bitter wind
Look out your window and smile
Don’t let the old man in
Look out your window and smile
Don’t let the old man in
