Toward the end of Nick Lowe's new album, At My Age, there's a lovely little tune called "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day". In the first verse, Lowe announces his plans to win over a prospective lover, crooning in an easy tenor, "First I have to break down your resistance to my charms." As if that's ever been a problem. There is little resisting the considerable charisma of Lowe, the elder statesman of punk, who, at 58, is cooler and more winsome than most rock stars half his age.

Over the phone from Los Angeles, where he's preparing for an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the British singer-songwriter-producer is a delightful conversationalist, whether he's dismissing the vulgarity of call alert ("I am on one call; I cannot be on another") or cursing Los Angeles ("I swore I'd never come back about 15 years ago, but here I am"). He's humble about his stellar new record, which sees Lowe continue to put a particularly British spin on American tropes such as country, blues, Motown, and jazz, but, at the same time, he's clearly excited about the new crowds that are turning up at his shows.

"I think the more I do my own thing, the more I turn up, look as good as I can, and sort of give the public what they want but not quite the more it seems to work," Lowe says. "I seem to be attracting a much more interesting audience these days. There's a lot more women, for instance. There used to be this sort of sea of grey ponytails out there. It was incredibly depressing. There's a lot more youngsters now, and a lot more women."

It's not difficult to see why Lowe would attract more women. At My Age is laced in equal measure with heartbreak and cutting satirical commentary on modern love, with much vitriol directed at himself as the self-effacing playboy. "I Trained Her to Love Me" is particularly noteworthy, as it's sung from the perspective of a man on a mission to inflict as much hurt as possible on the opposite sex.

"I plead the Randy Newman defence on this," Lowe jokes. "Randy Newman always used to say, 'It's not me: I make up a character, and the character is singing.' In a way, that's how I feel. When I got the idea for '[I] Trained Her to Love Me', I really just thought, 'I have to write this!' Unfortunately, there are people in the world like this character, who claim to be romantic but they actually hate women. And it's quite good fun to stand up on-stage and sing a song like that, because it polarizes the audience. Some people get really upset by it, and then some people that are more perceptive realize that it's just a pop song about a sad truth."

Lowe may claim that the deceptively mellow-sounding tunes on his record are just pop songs about characters, but he's had a dramatic few years since his last album, and it's difficult to believe it hasn't come out in his lyrics. Since 2001's The Convincer, Lowe has lost both of his parents, and, much to his surprise, he became a father in 2005. Now, with late-onset paternity and his own mortality to contemplate, the songs that satirize the tired old bachelor clichés could be seen as a eulogy for his former self.

"Perhaps," Lowe says with a deep, hearty laugh. "I used to live a sort of gloriously selfish existence. I would just sort of please myself. But of course now I have to think about not only my son but his dear mama as well. And I suppose that does change things quite a bit. But don't get me wrong. I count myself a very lucky man."

Nick Lowe plays Richard's on Richards on Wednesday (October 10).