When I was a kid I used to try and imagine what life would be like in the year 2000. That's not unusual I suppose. I am of that generation. Post war, baby boomer, watching the sixties happen, the Beatles and the Stones prodding me into looking forward to my teenage years, though of course 1966 ruined my life (I'm a Scotsman - I was 11). And that time of my growing was marked by events; Neil Armstrong walked on the moon; I played in my first band; took a train to Marseilles then St Tropez; saw the Ziggy Stardust tour; Neil Young in Glasgow; Bruce Springsteen in Edinburgh; kissed a girl or two, bought a 1960 Fender Stratocaster which I still have. But this is a list which is as long as its subjective and each event on the list is a nostalgic memory, probably less interesting than I remember - for isn't nostalgia a return to a place that never really existed, events become better in the re-telling. However, at no time did I ever anticipate who I would become and indeed what and where I would be now. *
I have to confess, I have been immensely lucky. I have done things, been places, written things, sung some of them, lectured and read them in public too and now here I am, heading for 55 and 2010. So I thought 55 in 2010 might be a good time for me to collect fragments of the year while recalling snatches of the past... thus, this blog will be little more than a collage of thoughts and reminiscences, scraps and fragments, traces, places and grace notes, stuff like this from Neil Young which was first released when I was just 18...
*
*
...it never fails to put a smile on my face. YouTube at 55 is such a joy! Anyway, this is me writing about looking back, in the present, with an eye to the future...
