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Paul Hardcastle

Paul Hardcastle is a British synth player. He was born December 10, 1958. Paul
enjoyed success on the underground dance scene in the early 80s before breaking
into the mainstream with "19", an international smash which spent five weeks at
number one in the UK. In the latter half of the 1980s he specialised in TV
soundtrack work, and now records mainly under the pseudonym Jazzmasters.
"19" was an interesting combination of preachy spoken word, testimonials, looping
news reports, synths and heavy beats, concerning a subject that dominated music two
decades earlier: the Vietnam War. The number nineteen was significant in the song
as the reported "average age" of the combat soldier during the conflict.
While those of us who were of high school age (or there-abouts) at the time were
not terribly concerned with the political fallout that surrounded the Vietnam war,
there was so little popular music with socio-political messages in 1985 that we
really latched on to it. Plus for some reason it felt really cool to repeat the
line "I wasn't really sure what was going on."
Hundreds of thousands of men who saw heavy combat in Vietnam have been arrested
since discharge. Their arrest rate is almost twice that of non-veterans of the
same age. There are no accurate figures of how many of these men have been
incarcerated. But, a Veterans Administration study concludes that the greater the
Vets exposure to combat the more likely his chances of being arrested or convicted.
After World War II the Men came home together on troop ships, but the Vietnam Vet
often arrived home within 48 hours of jungle combat. Perhaps the most dramatic
difference between World War II and Vietnam was coming home... none of them
received a hero's welcome.
This is one legacy of the Vietnam War
Click on the following link to read the Lyrics to '19': Lyrics to '19'
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