"19" Paul Hardcastle 1985 HQ

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"19" is a song by British musician Paul Hardcastle released as the first single from his self-titled third studio album Paul Hardcastle (1985).

The song has a strong anti-war message, focusing on America's involvement in the Vietnam War and the effect it had on the soldiers who served. The track was notable for early use of sampled and processed speech, in particular a synthesized stutter effect used on the words 'nineteen' and 'destruction'. It also includes various non-speech, re-dubbed sampling, such as crowd noise and a military bugle call.

"19" features sampled narration (by Peter Thomas), out-of-context interview dialogue ("I wasn't really sure what was going on") and news reports from Vietnam Requiem the ABC television documentary about the post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by Vietnam veterans. In 2009, the song placed at 73 on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 80s.

"19" had huge international success in the charts; it went to No. 1 in the UK (for five weeks), a number of other countries world wide, and yet only met with muted reception in the US Pop Charts. Despite this, the single had great success in the Dance and Club charts, where it went to number 1. "19" became the top-selling single in 13 countries. This was helped by the fact that versions of the song, spoken by well-known local news anchors, were recorded in French, Spanish, German and Japanese. The song received the Ivor Novello award for Best-selling single of 1985. The song's English-language release came in three different 12" versions - "Extended Version", "Destruction Mix" and "The Final Story", each with an alternative cover design.