1989-90, known at the time as the second summer of love. The era of acid house, raves, E's (or MDMA), baggy trousers, bucket hats and - especially - Madchester, specifically the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays, who I saw live.
I still listen to The Stone Roses and Pills n' Thrills and Bellyaches to this day. It reminds me that even I was young once. It makes me think of Charles Bukowski's poem So now?, one of the last late, great poems written when he was dying of leukaemia:
the words have come and gone,
I sit ill.
the phone rings, the cats sleep.
Linda vacuums.
I am waiting to live, waiting to die.
I wish I could ring in some bravery.
it's a lousy fix but the tree outside doesn't know:
I watch it moving with the wind in the late afternoon sun.
there's nothing to declare here, just a waiting.
each faces it alone.
Oh, I was once young,
Oh, I was once unbelievably young!
