VOL. 1, TRACK 7: PAUL HARDCASTLE, “19”
The reason you don’t see a preview for this music video is because the images and events depicted in the video are horrifying and obscene. But they’re not the product of some mini-horror film — they’re pictures from a real war that actually happened, less than 60 years ago: Vietnam.
I’m 45 years old, so obviously I’ve known about Vietnam my whole life. I knew it was a totally unjust war, all around. I knew there were thousands upon thousands of senseless, unnecessary deaths: the U.S. soldiers and Vietnamese both. All of those lives were valuable and precious, and they were so violently and awfully thrown away by stupid, horrible, prideful governments.
But watching this video put the horror of Vietnam in a whole new perspective for me. Just like the song title says, the average age of a U.S. combat soldier in Vietnam was nineteen. That’s just a kid, barely out of high school! Imagine, being that age and getting shot at. Every day. I cannot imagine what those kids must have felt like, going to bed and waking up every morning. Were they experiencing just awful dread and terror all the time? PTSD couldn’t begin to describe it. I would be jumping out of my skin. I would be so, so, so fucked. And that was their everyday.
When I set out to review this song and video this morning, I had no idea I was going to wind up where I am now: giving Paul Hardcastle’s “19” a 10/10. Not because it addresses a social justice issue, a la Phil Collins re: homelessness. That’s all well and good, but Paul Hardcastle is so many levels of unapologetically badass in putting that message out there, just one big, long, melodic FUCK YOU, THIS IS FUCKED THAT WE STOOD BY AND WATCHED ALL THIS HAPPEN, in the form of an in-your-face song and music video.
Which is SO New Wave — counterculture put to its best and highest use: reality checking the establishment!
Honestly, there’s a chance that “19” may actually be the most New Wave song of all time, because it addresses such an atrocious period of (organized and sanctioned) crimes against humanity. Was anybody else in the deeply superficial, tons-of-fun ‘80s trying to look at that uncomfortable stuff, even though it was so close in the rear view mirror?
No, they were not.
And I don’t know this for a fact, but it may have even been deeply uncool to be still angsting about Vietnam, in 1985, which was when “19” was released. Lots of people probably just wanted to pretend it never happened! But then again, lots of people spend their lives in all kinds of delirium and denial. So it just goes to show that if you’re someone as deeply fucking compassionate as Paul Hardcastle, you can’t be ambiguous or ambivalent in making a point about something you care about that deeply.
And all those kids and soldiers who fought in Vietnam — as well as the killed and traumatized Vietnamese themselves — deserved to be cared about deeply. They were not, and that’s just tragic.
💘
