If the title to Miley Cyrus‘ Younger Now album — announced Tuesday (Aug 8) for the upcoming LP, due September 29 — sounds familiar, there might be a reason for that.
The phrase “younger now” bears a strong echo of one of Bob Dylan’s most famous choruses, for his 1964 Another Side of Bob Dylan track “My Back Pages” — also a 1967 Hot 100 top 40 hit for The Byrds. “Ah, but I was so much older then/ I’m younger than that now,” the purposefully paradoxical refrain goes.
The reference would make sense for Cyrus, an avowed Dylan disciple. Miley has covered several Dylan classics in recent years, including a collaboration with Johnzo West on a version of his Blood on the Tracks staple “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” for the 2012 tribute album Chimes of Freedom, and another with The Roots on a live rendition of the early-’60s rarity “Baby, I’m in the Mood for You” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Miley also discussed “Younger Now” as a potential title with writer John Norris in a Billboard interview. “I just think for girls to celebrate being young right now would be a great thing,” she told Norris, explaining that the particular phrase also came from something her mother had recently said to her. “She was like, ‘I swear to God, you are younger now at 24 than you were at 4!’ And so it just hit me, like I am f–king younger now, and I am proud of that.”
She also clarified that her feeling younger equates to her feeling more liberated, and “not afraid of who I used to be… It’s like saying, ‘I don’t give a f–k that I was Hannah Montana. I don’t give a f–k that I was the Bangerz girl.'”
A rep for Cyrus declined to comment further on the album title’s origins. Read our May cover story with Miley here.