At the age of seventeen, I dropped out of sixth form and enrolled at Newcastle College, hoping to find what I wanted to do with my life. I proceeded to fail my A-levels badly as I partied a lot and got into trouble. I’d given myself too much rope to hang myself. I thought I was grown-up, an adult capable of making my own decisions but in reality, I didn't know shit. But you couldn't tell me anything back then.
I had aspirations to be a singer-songwriter (still makes me chuckle) but a lack of talent and any real commitment to those plans fell by the wayside like a lot of other things I wanted to do. After getting sacked from a steady part-time job, I felt the lifestyle I was leading was already old and outstaying its welcome. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have rushed to move on and held onto some of the more realistic plans a bit longer but that's the thing about hindsight.
In 1996 the Smashing Pumpkins released the single 1979, I was then twenty and on the cusp of leaving my troublesome youth behind. It’s one of those songs I listen to now and wish I had a way of communicating with my younger self. I’d go back in time and tell the younger me to relax more, take control of the situation a bit better and have the courage to stick to the plans I had made to travel.
The video for the song sees the band driving around between scenes of young teens messing around, getting into trouble, attending a party and doing all the things I would have done at that age. In one scene the group of kids are overlooking the small town they live in, giving it the finger. Yep, I can relate.
If I go back in the time travel machine to 1993 when the band released Today from the album Siamese Dream. I was seventeen and at the age where I could get served beer, noticed girls more and was introduced to weed. The video is vibrant and alive with energy; blues, yellows, reds and greens and it finishes with the band painting the ice cream truck they’ve been driving around in.
The lines “Today is the greatest, day I've ever known, can't live for tomorrow, tomorrow's much too long” resonated with me as I searched for something but not wanting to wait. A call to arms to just live for the day.
Gish, the band’s debut album was released in 1991. I was gifted a copy of this from a girl I’d been dating on and off in 1993. I can still see her on the night she shoved a copy in my hands and told me to listen to it. Curly auburn hair, brown suede jacket, ripped jeans and Converse, cool as fuck. And what a great album. I’m not sure how I missed it on release, I guess we were all caught in the Nirvana of it all.
Later on that evening, she bundled me into a toilet cubicle and gave me another gift, half a tab of acid. Clutching warm bottles of lager, we giggled like kids as we placed them on our tongue, made out and waited for it to all kick in.
I listen to 1979 and I’m transported back to another time when the world seemed easier and decisions were made in a heartbeat.