This song just strikes a chord with audiences everywhere - even if the year needs changing. 'Someone went ahead of me, and turned the signposts round...' - the story of my life!
Written in 2001, this started with a single verse and a concept - easily continued through the additional verses. Those were very personal when written, as 1969 was when I played in folk clubs and also became a unit with my late wife Shirley (the photo of her is from 1987 though - she was a model when we met and became a photographer with me for 47 years of marriage, cancer depriving me of her spirit and body in July 2019). The verse about the bus queue is totally about us. I never thought the final verse would one day be so true, as I really would like to 'write this book again'.
(Spoken - backing Am/F/G/Am/Em/Am)
They say sixty-seven was all that it seemed
A summer of love, a doorway to dreams
But hell, not for me! I was only fifteen
And the best years were yet to come...
(main song)
Take me back to 1969!
I want to do it all again!
I'm running out of time,
I'm so much older now than then!
I want to make my way back home,
Walk the paths I never found
Because someone went ahead of me
And turned the signposts round...
Take me back to 1969
I want to play that tune again!
I want to fade out on the line
Where the music never ends
I want to turn the volume up
And sing the songs I heard
Before someone locked the tuning dial
And that station disappeared!
Take me back to 1969,
I want to catch that bus again!
I want to stand there in the line,
Just waiting in the rain.
I want to walk you right back home
By the gaslamp's fading light,
Before they powered up our street
And burned away the night!*
Take me back to 1969!
I want to write this book again!
Now I can read between the lines,
And I know just how it ends...
I want to make those bullets miss,
The lovers live another day,
Before they bomb our sinking ship
And blow us both away!
(First verse repeat)
(intro repeat with fade)