I was only 19.............

I was only 19......its the 70's, psychedelic music, psychedelic colours  and  freedom . But hang on, I'll just go and research when that famous song by Redgum "I was only 19" was penned!  Phewey,  talk about being hijacked in the blink of an eye!

I was on a mission for a minute and that was about 'me' and when I was 19 but some gremlins have scrambled my mind and now I'm in another era! Mind you it's an era I do rather enjoy dwelling in as it conjures up so many memories of a carefree life, sex and drugs and rock n roll. Well not so much the rock n roll but the other was probably pretty apt :)

It's funny how a random thought can start a chain reaction and boy I've just gone through a roller coaster ride of emotions and flashbacks to another time, but wait, now I'm in  fast forward mode to another time and it's now 1983, that's when the song was written and it's the year my son was born. But I'm not 19, I've passed that little milestone and the life I had, the music changed and not always for the better in the 80's but there was some amazing Aussie music about and "I was only 19" is one that even today, 29 years later, has the ability to stir something deep within  me. It was almost like it was our 'Anthem' of the time, at least in the circles I was hanging.
 
But back to the youtube clip....as I'm watching the video of the day,  black and white news clips of the Vietnam War and listening to the echoing words of that soulful song,  my mind is racing, reeling back through the years to the demonstrations of the time, the music that spoke to me of freedom and independence and of the life that I was living all those years ago. 


Watching that video clip was like watching one of those movies that jump from the past to the present and back again.....I don't usually like them all that much as I find it hard to follow so when my own mind was skipping through the years, past and present I was having a similar reaction, I didn't like it too much, way too much energy exerted in those few minutes it took to watch that song come to it's conclusion. I guess it's a mix of remembering a time that revolutionized music, changed me and my outlook on life forever, and regardless of how much fun living in that time was it will always be tinged with a shadow of what that song 'I was only 19' was all about. Conscription, demonstrations, lies and deceit and so many lives that were changed forever and not just those of the soldiers that made it home.

It's like a bittersweet experience listening to that song, it stirs something deep within, I'm never quite sure why I still have such a strong reaction to that era of my life, maybe it's the music, maybe it was my wild and free life experiences or maybe it's about my lost youth which held my precious hopes and dreams of a lifetime.

Youth of course is something that can never be reclaimed and really if you asked, I doubt I would want to re live it but there's something powerful wrapped up in that time. Maybe there's a little box and it's labelled 'secret' so secret in fact that even my conscious self doesn't quite understand it. Perhaps it's a little time capsule that's been carefully buried in my mind and heart and being and sometimes it's seal pops open and for a brief moment the contents are visible for all to see and then just like that, whamo, it's closed again, sealing it's precious cargo, it's contents safe and secure and perhaps that's where they will stay, where they're meant to be....a box of memories that I will carry with be forever and a day and will never fully understand. And do I need to anyway!

But lost youth and distant memories aside, the music I spent countless hours listening to on the good old quadrophonic stereo system always has the ability to bring a smile to my face. I still remember laying on the floor between those quad speakers with the volume full bore listening to the likes of  Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple,  Country Joe McDonald, The Doors,  Electric Light Orchestra, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band and so many more that would fill a page if I was to continue. Boy wasn't that quadraphonic stereo the bees knees in upmarket hi fi, laughable today of course but when I lived in that big old army tent in the caravan park in Mt Isa and in the outback of Boulia, that stereo came along too.....yep you had to have good music, didn't matter about other necessities of life like furniture or flash cars, nope you just had to have a beanbag and a good sound system to play those lp records on.

So when I was only 19, it was 1970 and quite some years before 'that' song came along in 1983. In the 13 years in between I would have 2 children, eight years apart and like many, the music of the time would shape and change my life forever and on some level, for that of my children too. 

Oh and the baby born in 1983 was reared on the classic music of the 70's which was always playing and always loud so it's no wonder he would gravitate towards sub woofer's and  'discover' the joys of 70's music along the way as he matured into an adult.


And my daughter who was 8 in 1983 had become a seasoned aficionado of 70's music at her young age so it's no wonder she still finds the odd classic tracks to download for her Mummy today and I know she enjoys them as much as I do at times.