Hippie-ness
October 2020
This article is a collection of facebook entries I wrote to celebrate my early memories of growing up in the late 60s and early 70s. I have a soft spot for flower-power, the counter-culture, hippies and the wonderful way they had of looking at things. It was an age of optimism and even though it did not bring about the age of peace and love that many hippies wanted, it was still a great age to live through.
I originally thought I would that I would pick out 7 songs for a week’s worth of entries, but in the end added an extra one in. There are so many others I could have added (Canned Heat’s Let’s Work Together, Scott McKenzie’s If You’re Going to San Francisco, Donovan’s Mellow Yellow etc etc). In the end I chose songs that especially resonated with my own memories. I turned it into an article as it was long enough plus I could add some photos in to illustrate the fantastic colours of that time.
The years 1966-1972 were some of the happiest of my life and apart from the music I have lots of other good memories from that period. Growing up in Liverpool meant that listening to the Beatles was almost in your job description. Another Liverpudlian who was a Beatles fan was also struck by the whole flower power movement. It is not generally known, but Ken Dodd was a closet hippie. In 1968 he was going to re-release his 1964 hit “Happiness” with suitably changed lyrics:-
“Hippie-ness, hippie-ness, The greatest thing that I possess,
I thank the lord that I’ve been blessed With more than my share of hippie-ness”
He was talked out of it by his management. Dodd himself was in his late 30s so it was thought that youngsters would not warm to him, but if only Dodd had stuck to his guns - what a hit record it might have been.
Solidarity
Brian Madican
September 2020
Monday This week I will be mainly trying to get in touch with my hippie beginnings from the late 60s and early 70s so I am going to put up a song up each day from my extreme yoof. I was never really a hippie externally, but internally I like to think I am.
Anyway, first up is The Onion Song by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. This came out in 1969 and I can still remember being impressed by the lyrics especially the line “Everybody got to plant love seeds until it dies”.
This is also one of the best duets I have ever heard. Marvin and Tammi are both good singers, but by singing it as though it was a conversation or even by adding in a “Yes, it is, now” they make the song so much stronger than if either of them had been singing it solo. Hope you enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npvSuZ8FWXE
Tuesday This is one of my real favourites. Smokey Robinson (Smokey – even his name sounds great) and the Miracles singing “The Tears of a Clown” from 1970. The music is really rather upbeat and joyful, but the lyrics are quite sad. The editing of this vid leaves something to be desired and the dancing of the Miracles - especially the guy on the left – makes me think they seem not to have understood the meaning of the song. But these are tiny criticisms. After all, how could anyone complain about a song that rhymes “convince you” with “since you”? Absolutely superb. This was also the first time I ever heard of the famous clown Pagliacci. The 2nd time was when I read “The Watchmen” as Alan Moore has Rorschach tell the following story:-
“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaMX0Cs5Bc4
Wednesday My quest to get in touch with my inner hippie continues and that is “hippie” not “hipster”. This one is slightly earlier than the 69/70 timeslot of the others, but I remember it coming out and it is such a cracking song - Daydream Believer by The Monkees.
The Beatles were so successful in the 1960s that some imaginative suit in the music industry in America thought “Let’s get some young guys of our own together and try to copy them”. An ad was put in a music magazine for four zany youngsters and The Monkees were born as the first manufactured boy band. The Beatles were known as the Fab Four and so The Monkees became known as the Pre-fab Four.
John Lennon was once asked what he thought about The Monkees being based on the Beatles. He replied “Based on The Beatles? I always thought they were based on the Marx brothers!” Anyone who has seen The Monkees show from the 1960s will know what Lennon meant. All the same, they produced some beautiful songs.
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Funnily enough Davy Jones did not want to sing this originally. He thought the lyrics were silly and questioned what the whole song was about - “Oh, I could hide ‘neath the wings Of the blue bird as she sings”. What?!?!? He was eventually convinced to sing it though – even if he was not convinced it would be a hit. It went on to sell millions and is still sung all over the world. In fact, I have it from a reliable source that in recent years it has been heard on several Curryoke nights being vocally murdered by a slightly inebriated patron of The Star of India.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvqeSJlgaNk
Thursday Today’s song for my psychedelic soul is both psychedelic and soul music - “Ball of Confusion” by The Temptations. And, boy oh boy, was the world confused at that time.
This features the made up phrase/sound “Great googamooga” which I may add to my list of words to be brought back into popular use. It works because a) it sounds great and b) in the song it rhymes with “to ya” as in “Great googamooga, Can’t ya hear me talkin’ to ya”. And those are good enough reasons for me.
The song also has the enigmatic line “And the band played on”. I am not sure what this refers to. It could be symbolic of any band playing on while everyone is ignoring (or wanting to escape from) all the terrible things that are going on around them and so just listening to the music. I recently thought it might be referring to the band on the Titanic who played on while the ship was sinking so in this song the world is falling apart and the band is still playing on. The rest of the lyrics certainly reflect a frustration and desperation about the way the writer saw events in 1970 when this single came out. “The only person talking ‘bout lovin’ one another is the preacher, And it seems, no one is interested in learning ‘cept the teacher.”
Heavy, man. Still if you think the world is still in bad shape today well then you’d be absolutely right. However, you may derive some comfort from the fact that to people with sensitive souls, the world has always seemed to be in a bad way or shall we say in dire need of some TLC and improvements. So if you feel that way too then welcome to being a fully paid up, life-long member of the Sensitive Soul Club.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wmcjBAZ-FQ
Friday It’s Friday and I’m Feelin’ Groovy (aka The 59th Street Bridge Song). It has been said that Paul Simon was high on psilocybin mushrooms when he wrote this one in 1966. Well, to be fair, he does start talking to a lamp-post. (“Hello lamp-post, whatcha knowing? I come to watch your flowers growin’, Aincha got no rhymes for me?”). But who knows? And who cares? It is a short, but lovely song and one of my favourite Paul Simon compositions. The words really sum up a sense of joy and care-free abandon at being alive in the world and anyone who has taken magic mushrooms knows that this is what you can feel like on them. Or so I have heard. Not that I am admitting to having taken magic mushrooms. Well, not since 2005 when Home Secretary, David Blunkett, (the man who put the jerk in knee-jerk) re-classified them as Class A drugs – the same category as crack cocaine and heroin. I mean, how can you warm to or even reason with a right-wing a-hole like him who wanted to “sound tough on drugs” for the benefit of the press. Not that I bear a grudge against him, you understand, but this is the man who would have given Paul Simon an up-to-seven-years prison sentence. And what for? Well, for trying to engage an inanimate piece of street furniture in a conversation about its floral arrangements and song-writing abilities. Jeez!
Anyway, enough of the bad vibes already. As Ringo (still the oldest hippie in town) might say “Peace and love, man, peace and love”. For all the young dudes out there, Ringo was the drummer for the Beatles - arguably the best band in the world. John Lennon was once asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world. He replied “Ringo? Ringo’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles!”.
But I digress. Back to the song. The word “Groovy” is one of those words that doesn’t have to be explained. It sounds like what it is. Like “voluptuous”. Everyone instinctively knows what it means. “Groovy” like “Fab” or “scene” or “drag” was also one of those wonderful words that “happened” in youth culture in the 60s. And you had to be young to use them at the time. Anyone over 30 who threw a “Man, it was a real groovy happening” into their conversation would have paid an immediate price in unconcealed sniggering and laughter. But even though I am now twice x 30 I am on a one-man mission to bring such words back into popular use.
My own introduction to Simon and Garfunkel was through my brother. In fact, a lot of my musical tastes were influenced by him. Chris is five years older than I am so he was actually buying Beatles and S&G records in 1969/70. A few years later and I was still being dragged along on his musical shirt-tails. He was then into Slade, Queen, T-Rex and Elton John so I got to listen to all of those great artists in the background as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xhJcQEfD5s
Saturday Today’s song is Melting Pot by Blue Mink. This really sums up some of the feelings at the time it was released (1970) over racial prejudice and the civil rights movement as a whole. Martin Luther King had been assassinated only two years earlier and there was (and still is) a long way to go to bring about racial equality. It can sound a little cheesy, I suppose, but for me, it’s still a beautiful song with great lyrics and a sassy, happy tune.
I know that some people have thought the song to be politically incorrect because of the line “mix with yellow chinkies”. This could be used as a term of derision or insult towards Chinese people. However, you can tell by the context that it is not being used in any derogatory manner in this song. Anyone who listens to the words will hear that the band are trying to think of a way to end racism not encourage it. They are, after all, trying to come up with a “recipe for a get-along scene” and “turn out coffee coloured people by the score”. What’s not to like? This was the first time I had heard of the idea that if everyone could be made the same (coffee coloured) colour then people could no longer be judged by their skin. Ok, not exactly the most likely scenario that might ever occur, but you need to open your mind wide, man, I mean, real wide, to take in the concepts. I am sure it made people ponder on how and why prejudices came about in the first place.
I always liked the line “We should all get together in a lovin’ machine, I’d better call up the queen – it’s only fair that she knows…. she knows, you know”. As if they thought ‘er maj would have turned up to a love fest! Accompanied by Pip maybe?!? That’s an even more unlikely event than the whole melting pot idea in the first place. I read somewhere that the line was improvised while they were recording the song and they decided to keep it in as it sounded good and worked so well.
And finally, having watched the clip, I have to point out that the ties on the drummer and one of the guitarists seem to be made of the same coloured/patterned material as their shirts. Now I am not exactly what you would call a dedicated follower of fashion, but I can’t help wondering why that look never caught on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAWn4FO1MOw
Sunday I was going to just do a week of these songs, but taking my lead from a famous Beatles song “Eight days a week” I decided to add an extra eighth song in. This is because I think my last two song choices really sum up hippie-thinking in two big ways.
The first is their attitude towards love. I will talk more about this in the final song tomorrow.
The second attitude was towards astrology and mysticism. This is embodied in the song or rather medley for today “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine in”. This was released in 1969 by The 5th Dimension (which is a great name for a band). It is a medley of two songs written for the 1967 musical Hair which opens with Aquarius. The first line "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius", brought the Aquarian age concept to the attention of audiences worldwide. The Woodstock music festival was billed as "An Aquarian Exposition".
The song goes on to define the dawning of this age: "When the Moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, Then peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars".
Again we see the references to peace and love but here there is a mystical aspect added into it all. Somehow love and peace are going to influence celestial bodies. Like, it’s all very far out, man.
On a more prosaic footing, astrologer Neil Spencer denounced the lyrics as "astrological gibberish". He stated that Jupiter aligns with Mars several times a year and the Moon is in the seventh House for two hours every day. Oh, dear… But, hey, chill out, you don’t have to take it all, like, literally. We are not just talking prophecy here but poetry as well so mere astronomical details can be sacrificed on the altar of poetic licence. The main thing is that we can look forward to a new golden age which will replace the present tarnished one.
Many mystical hippies saw (and some still do see) the Age of Aquarius as a time when humanity will come into its rightful heritage and take control not just of the Earth but its own destiny as well. The destiny of humanity is to bring about the revelation of truth and the expansion of consciousness not just through drugs like magic mushrooms but also through spiritual meditations of the transcendental kind. Some people will experience mental enlightenment in advance of others and therefore be recognized as the new leaders in the world. The lines reflect some of this in -
“Harmony and understanding, Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions, Golden living dreams of visions”
Having said that, older astrologers disagree. Proponents of medieval astrology suggest that the Pisces world where religion is the opiate of the masses will be replaced in the Aquarian Age by a world ruled by secretive, power-hungry elites seeking absolute power over others. Knowledge in the Aquarian Age will only be valued for its ability to win wars and so knowledge and science will be abused (does any of this sound familiar?). Finally the Aquarian Age will be a Dark Age in which religion is considered offensive (so it’s not all bad news after all).
You may have guessed that I am not what you might call a great believer in astrology myself. My own star sign is the one before Pisces… Faeces, that’s it. Comes just after Taurus as bull and shit always go together. This area of astrology and mysticism is where hippies and I part company.
Plus I can’t help but think it was in some ways responsible for the demise of the movement. People will say they want love and peace (who wouldn’t?), but when you start talking about mystical prophecies of new ages then unsurprisingly people can go cold on you. One of my favourite quotes from The Star Wars movies (which are themselves simply happy-ending fairy tales involving magic and royalty) is from Han Solo who says to Luke Skywalker -
“Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe that there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything. ‘Cause no mystical energy field controls my destiny. It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.”
Basically this is my view as well except for the bit about flying from one end of the galaxy to the other, of course. The hippies were right to think that we can build a society based on love and peace, but we will have to do it ourselves. There is no force out there just waiting for some pre-destined, propitious moment to make it all happen. The force, if force it be, is in ourselves. It is our human capacity for enough of us to want something good to happen combined with our human determination to bring it about. This only thing that is going to transform our world for the better is if enough humans want it to happen and get organised enough to bring it about.
I have been a bit down on some of the meanings of this medley. Also, I have hardly touched upon “Let the sunshine in” but the meaning in that song is much more straightforward. However, I do think the medley is still a great piece of music which is very uplifting and I enjoy listening to it. And I suppose if anyone wants to indulge themselves in believing prophecies and mysticism, well, at least they may not be doing anyone any actual harm. After all, you don’t have to love everybody (you can’t anyway) but if people simply stopped doing harm to others then this world would be greatly improved just by that alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILSr9BbhoJQ
Tune in tomorrow, same bat-time, same bat-channel for the final song.
Monday Today is the last day of my “week” of celebrating the hippie lifestyle and so I am ending my song fest with what has been called “the Hippie anthem” – The Beatles performing “All You Need is Love”. This was released in July 1967 at the height of what was popularly known as the Summer of Love.
The song was Britain's contribution to Our World which was the first live global television link. The band were filmed performing it at EMI Studios in London on 25th June. The programme was broadcast via satellite and seen by an audience of over 400 million in 25 countries. This was truly ground-breaking in 1967 and would not be a bad number of people to get to watch a programme even nowadays. It was released as a single and topped sales charts in Britain, the United States and many other countries. The song immediately became an anthem for the counterculture’s embrace of the flower power philosophy.
The lyrics are simple, but display a confidence that anything is possible. This is summed up by the almost throw away words “it’s easy” at the end of this verse.
“There's nothing you can do that can't be done, Nothing you can sing that can't be sung,
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game. It's easy.”
And when you think about it, well, it is.
In Paul McCartney's recollection, the song was entirely John Lennon's, with George Harrison, Ringo Starr and his own contributions confined to "ad-libs" at the end of the recording.
It is difficult to overstate the impact of the Beatles not just on flower power, but the sixties in general. The Beatles transformed society by introducing new ideas and notions through their music and activities. The Sgt Pepper album is generally considered the finest album ever released. It was said incorrectly that the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was a drugs song as the words spelled out LSD. George Harrison became interested in the philosophy and religion of India and so introduced Indian culture, colours and clothes into the West. With the other Beatles he took up transcendental meditation which received massive media coverage at the time. Their influence on popular culture was almost all-pervasive then and their songs and albums are still being bought in huge numbers now.
In 2009, Global Beatles Day was founded as an international celebration of the Beatles' music and social message. The event takes place on 25 June each year in memory of the Our World performance of the song.
It is more than appropriate for me to be putting this song up today (21st September 2020) of all days because (by a happy coincidence) it is also the United Nations International Day of Peace. Love and Peace go together like Lennon and McCartney and were the essential messages of the hippies.
Then again maybe it’s not a coincidence. Maybe the universe is unravelling to reveal itself to us in its own cosmic way. Maybe it was destined to happen like this as it had all been planned in the stars, man! Ok maybe not.
Well, with that I have gone on for long enough about the musical influences from my yoof. I will end this tribute to all things hippie with a right on phrase made popular by everyone’s favourite hippie from The Young Ones, Neil. In one episode the four guys take part in University Challenge. As Neil is introduced as a student of Scumbag College, he gives a 2 fingered hippie salute and says–
“Vegetable Rights and Peace”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHBnZeNlse8
A final reflection - I have enjoyed taking a trip (so to speak) down my musical memory lane. The hippie movement and whole flower-power scene may appear a bit naïve, but when you think about it – what’s not to like about trying to bring more love and peace into the world? The Beatles (arguably the greatest band in history) embraced and embodied the Summer of Love for a while with the music of Sgt Pepper and All You Need Is Love. All across the nations, so many gentle people grew their hair long, wore flowers and headed for San Francisco. Eventually the trip turned bad though.
The movement floundered in the seventies, but in the sixties it had inspired lots of people and still continues to do so. But, hey, just because it didn’t all work out then that doesn’t mean we should give up and stop to trying to make the world a better place.
As W C Fields once said “If at first you don’t succeed then try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damn fool about it!”, but we are not at that giving up stage yet.
In 1980, John Lennon said: “Maybe in the Sixties we were naive and like children and later everyone went back to their rooms and said, "We didn't get a wonderful world of flowers and peace." … Crying for it wasn't enough. The thing the Sixties did was show us the possibility and the responsibility we all had.“
Love and Peace, people, Love and peace,
And solidarity
Brian Madican
October 2020
