So, what do you wanna be when you grow up?

There's this picture of adulthood I have in my head that I, as an official old man on campus, can feel looming in my own life. There's a reason they call us college kids; we're about as juvenile as they come, prone to bingeing on everything but sleep, homework deprivation and fits of inappropriate chanting. We most certainly are Penn State, aren't we? Anyway.

But once we're not in college, we're adults, and the difference is staggering. Adults don't sleep in; they actually accomplish things before noon. Adults don't drink beer (at least, certainly not the garbage most of us go through), they drink wine, fancy expensive vinegary kinds I wouldn't know how to buy if I wanted to. Adults don't grab a bite after class, they have dinner parties, and eat chicken piccatta, and talk about all the movies they read about in The New Yorker and wish they still had time to see. And adults, sad as it is to admit it, like boring music. Grown folks' music.

I'll take the dinner parties, and the early start time, and even a schedule too hectic to see Maria Full of Grace (although maybe not the wine). But this music thing I have a real problem with. I don't know about you, but I hold onto hope that blasting 50 Cent is as exciting to me when I'm 30 as it is now. But I'm not holding my breath.

Al Green, though, I believe I'll take with me into my later years. He'll go great with all those dinner parties years down the road. But he's pretty good with a can of Chunky Soup on the couch in my apartment, too.

Al Green, the honey-voiced king of '70s soul, has seemingly only gotten better with age. Through his early days as a ladies man to his current tenure as "the Reverend," Al has been a part of some fine music in his time. And, although the years haven't proven Al Green Explores Your Mind to be the enduring classic some consider a few of his earlier works, it's a much more personal, eclectic record than Green had ever made up to that point. Al Green was 28 when he laid down Al Green Explores Your Mind, and that age is telling; it positions Al between his youthful days as a bad boy womanizer (although it's truly hard to picture him as ever being particularly bad) and the gentleman he wanted to become.

Explores Your Mind begins with the heavenly, strings-driven "Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)," which does just that. Its second track is the album's most famous, Al's original take on "Take Me To the River." The skittish Talking Heads version you're probably more familiar with is great, but barely holds water compared to how Al sings the song.

"God Bless Our Love" may be the high point of Explores Your Mind; over the simplest slow-dance doo-wop backdrop imaginable, Green croons as sweetly as you've ever heard anyone sing.

"I'm Hooked On You" and "Stay With Me Forever" are two more stellar entries in Green's vast catalogue of staggeringly happy tunes. You know how most love songs are actually insidiously depressing, filled with stories of loss and regret and all that disheartening stuff?

Not Al Green's.

The pure bliss in Al's voice is reason enough to recommend Explores Your Mind. Oh, and his backing band. And the great songs. The list goes on.

Appropriately enough (you knew I'd get to my point sometime, right?), Explores Your Mind ends with "School Days," a tune about missing the innocence of his past but pushing on into the future. I guarantee it'll sound as good to a college senior as it must to a 50-year-old professor, and anybody you might turn into in the meantime.

Explores Your Mind is just a beautiful, joyful record that nobody -- old or young -- couldn't warm up last night's leftover ramen (or discuss their 401k) to. It's the sound of a man learning to grow up and how to be in love, and everybody needs to hear a little bit about that sometimes.

Maybe Al Green Explores Your Mind is grown folks' music. But it's anything but boring, and that's almost enough to make getting old sound all right.