If I understand the ear correctly, you actually hear in the frequency domain (spectrum) rather than in the time domain (waveform) where a large number of "hair cells" are each sensitive to a particular frequency and once damaged they don't regenerate. Thus older folks lose high-frequency hearing because those hair cells deteriorate first; thus you may lose hearing at certain frequencies and... why not, the cells can…
Hairs can mess up from loud sound. there was a story a few year back, a man killed himself a month after a loud concert. This is only one possible reason.