salad days

For the musical by Julian Slade, see: Salad Days.

"Salad days" is an idiomatic expression, referring to a youthful time, accompanied by the inexperience, enthusiasm, idealism, innocence, or indiscretion that one associates with a young person. More modern use, especially in the United States, refers to a person's heyday when somebody was at the peak of his/her abilities—not necessarily in that person's youth.

The phrase was coined in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra in 1606. In the speech at the end of Act One in which Cleopatra is regretting her youthful dalliances with Julius Caesar she says:

"...My salad days, / When I was green in judgment, cold in blood..."

The phrase only became popular from the middle of the nineteenth century on, coming to mean “a period of youthful inexperience or indiscretion." The metaphor comes from the Cleopatra's use of the word 'green'—a word which has a meaning indicating someone youthful, inexperienced, or immature. The probable allusion is to certain leafy plants (such as dandelions) which are edible when young and tender.

In terms of modern pop culture in America, the term was used memorably by Nicolas Cage's character HI McDonugh in Raising Arizona. News of his wife's infertility caused him the unhappy realization that he "...preminisced no return of the salad days."

The comedic group Monty Python made a skit entitled Sam Peckinpah's "Salad Days", in which a group of young adults from upper-class English society in the early 1900s have a picnic in a park which ends in everyone dying in bloody but ridiculous ways.

British progressive rock band Procol Harum had a song titled "Salad Days (are Here Again)" on their 1967 self-titled debut album.

British New Romantic band Spandau Ballet used the lyrics, "These are my salad days slowly being eaten away," in their 1983 hit "Gold."

D.C. hardcore band Minor Threat wrote a song called Salad Days, which implies that such romanticized memories of youth are a lie.

There was also a famous Japanese comic (manga) titled Salad-Days, written by Shinobu Inokuma.

The 1980's minimalist rock band "Young Marble Giants" had a song called Salad Days on their album titled Colossal Youth. Salad Days is also the title of a collection of early demos and outtakes (recorded in 1979) issued on CD in 2000 (included in the Colossal Youth and Collected Works 3-CD reissue on Domino Records, 2007).

Skavoovie and ther Epitones have a track titled "Salad Days" on their 1999 album, The Growler.

The political punk band Anti-Flag have a song called No Future off their upcoming benefit CD, which has the lines "Your future is not to be forced on the world/The salad days of revolution are inborn", which is saying, from an adult's perspective, that youth shouldn't bother spreading their ideas to anyone else because other youth in the world will also go through their salad days (and then, it's implied, grow up, mature, and get over their salad days, which is the mainstream adult perspective). The band is saying this in a tone that's scornful of the conventional adult thinking.

The American skate-punk band NOFX recorded a song entitled "Anarchy Camp" about a summer camp for young Anarchists on the album "The War on Errorism". Like many NOFX lyrics, this is no doubt a tongue-in-cheek reference to other "Salad Days" instances: "so come along with us/salad days and nights on the anarchaic bus"

References

• Dictionary.com entry
• World Wide Words discussion of 'Salad Days' usage, original and modern

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