Songfacts®:

• Sinead O'Connor wrote this when she was 16 about a boy she had a crush on at school named Ben Johnson. She recalled to Uncut: "He was this gorgeous guy that all the girls wanted to go out with. I went out with him for like a day and then he sensibly dumped me. Mainly I look back at it and I think, 'Gosh, I was a kid.'"
  
  According to Sinead, he had a hawk, and would let her feed it. What girl can resist that?
• The song is a track from O'Connor's debut album, The Lion And The Cobra. The title of the LP is from Psalm 91:13, "you will tread upon the lion and cobra." This song opens with an Irish language recital of Psalm 91 by another famous Irish singer, Enya.
• "Never Get Old" is one of three songs from O'Connor's demo for Ensign Records that made it on to The Lion And The Cobra. She was in a band called Ton Ton Macoute when Ensign spotted her (she was also a waitress at a place in Dublin called the Bad Ass Café, where she and the other girls wore T-shirts that said "Nice Pizza Ass"). The label flew her to London where she recorded four songs as a tryout - she passed the audition. The other songs from the demo to make the album are "Drink Before The War" and "Just Like U Said It Would B."
  
  O'Connor was 18 when she signed her record deal and 20 when the album was released. She had her first child, son Jake, three weeks before the album came out. The father, whom she married (and later divorced) is her drummer, John Reynolds.
• Sinead O'Connor's guitarist for The Lion And The Cobra album was Robert Dean, who played in the British New Wave group Japan from 1975-1981. He has fond memories of working with Sinead. "I am extremely proud of that period and working with her was never less than a delight," he told Songfacts in 2025. "I think of her with nothing but admiration and warmth."