About The Song
“I Wish I Was 18 Again” appears on Ray Price’s final studio album, Beauty Is… The Final Sessions, released in April 2014 on AmeriMonte Records shortly after his death in December 2013. The album gathered tracks from his last recording sessions, with this song as track 10. Clocking in at 3:33, it features Price’s warm, mature baritone over a sparse, heartfelt arrangement of acoustic guitar, light piano, and gentle strings—emphasizing quiet reflection rather than production flash.
Sonny Throckmorton wrote the song in 1979. A prolific Nashville tunesmith, he created it as a meditation on aging and hindsight. George Burns took the first major version to #15 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs and #49 on the Hot 100 in 1980, making it a surprise late-career hit for the comedian. Jerry Lee Lewis also cut it around the same time. Price’s recording, made in his final years while battling pancreatic cancer, transformed the track into something deeply personal.
Though never issued as a standalone single, the album peaked at No. 22 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, Price’s highest solo entry in more than three decades. Fans and critics praised the track as a standout, noting how Price’s voice still carried the emotional weight that defined his career.
The song has been covered by artists including Foster & Allen and Jim Ed Brown, but Price’s version feels uniquely final. The entire project was dedicated to his wife Janie, adding extra resonance to its themes of reflection and enduring love. In later compilations and playlists, “I Wish I Was 18 Again” remains a quiet highlight of Price’s catalog—a simple, sincere ballad that speaks directly to anyone who has ever looked back and wondered “what if.”
Video
Lyric
At a bar down in Dallas, an old man chimed in
And they thought he was out of his head
And all being young men, they just laughed it off
When they heard what the old man had said
He said, “I’ll never again turn the young ladies’ heads
Or go running off into the wind
I’m three quarters home from the start to the end
And I wish I was 18 again”
Oh, I wish I was 18 again
And going where I’ve never been
Now old folks and old oaks standing tall just pretend
I wish I was 18 again
Now time turns the pages and life goes so fast
The years turn the black hair all grey
I talk to some young folks, but they don’t understand
The words this old man’s got to say
Oh, I wish I was 18 again
And going where I’ve never been
But old folks and old oaks standing tall just pretend
I wish I was 18 again
Oh, I wish I was 18 again