Old Hippies

I have a certain fascination with the hippie era. Not as in, I wish I had been there, but more as an entomological study. On the Midwestern prairie we had no Summer of Love. We had a summer of working, a summer of riding bicycles and pressing transistor radios to our ears; a summer of stretching the coiled cord of the kitchen wall phone all the way around the corner into the hall so we could have private conversations.

The war was, of course, on everyone's mind, but more urgently than college kids who had deferments and spent their lunch periods carrying signs. To my big brother the war wasn't abstract -- he had to worry if his number was going to be pulled out of the big bingo jar and if he was going to die in a rice paddy. Working class boys didn't have a lot of options. They could flee to Canada or they could join the National Guard, which is what my brother did. My brother was hardly the military type, but he ultimately did his civic duty...and he stayed alive. Meanwhile, boys with wispy goatees in San Francisco twirled around in tie-dyed tee shirts.

I was twelve that summer. On TV I saw mystified CBS News reporters chronicling the Haight-Ashbury scene. All the characters looked like dizzy dorks. I especially loved the dance of the scarves, which was a classic. One could not flip the television dial without glimpsing some barefoot bra-less chick whirling on a hillside with a multi-hued scarf. So profound!

Old hippies probably don't grasp this, but we didn't envy them. We thought they were imbeciles.

Fifty-odd years later, I wonder how many of them have managed to maneuver life with all their brain cells intact. They'd be -- well, past retirement age. Do they entertain their grandkids with tales of past acid trips? Did some get elected to congress? (yes) Did they at some point learn to appreciate the joy of bar soap and penicillin?

Sage Midwesterners always knew that life was life, and there was no escaping it. My brother didn't "drop out", and I didn't, either. We didn't have that luxury.

Marty Balin died this week. He was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, a band that encapsulated the summer of love. Reading about him, I learned that he was a pretty good guy, but that band epitomized everything I hated about the times.

Marty solo:

In my town we weren't listening to Jefferson Airplane. This is what we were tuning in to on our local radio station:

And especially this:

See? We were hip, too.

And we still possess all our brain cells.

More Hits From the Summer of Lo-oo-ve!

Hey, kids! (Well, I guess you're not really kids anymore, are you?)

If you have any cognitive memory of the hits of 1967, sorry, but you are old. I hate to break it to you (and to myself), but it's unfortunately true.

If you remember two posts ago, I began enumerating the top hits of that seminal year in music. And I got through number fifteen.

Well, FYI, there were more hits than just fifteen! That is why I'm here to discuss.....

So, let's continue on, shall we?

Number sixteen. The Beatles said, all you need is love. Well, the Beatles were lying. They absolutely abhorred each other by 1967. Even Ringo, and that's saying a lot.

Nevertheless, they apparently loved somebody; just not each other.



#17 is a sparkly song, and I don't mean that in a good way. I just watched an episode of Modern Family, in which Lily was forced to wear a light-up dress as a flower girl in a wedding, and I thought, how preposterous. Apparently not. Shield your eyes as you watch the Supremes:



What do you know? Number eighteen is also from the Supremes. This time in pale yellow nauseating chiffon. I remember this song, but I think it was because there was some kind of commercial tie-in; I could be wrong. I wanna say some car company appropriated this song, but you know, that was a long time ago, but heavens, there must be some reason I remember it. It can't be for its artistic merit.



Seriously? This next song was only number nineteen? And "The Happening" beat it out? Hmmm, let's see, which song do we remember? Well, I guess if I'm in the mood to shop for a new Chevy, and I have a time machine, maybe "The Happening" springs to mind.

Otherwise, I'll just go with Penny Lane.



Never mind that a pretty nurse is selling puppies from a tray. And how does she keep the puppies from jumping off that tray? It's a mystery. Just like the "four of fish and finger pie", which sounds scrumptious!

Remember the Royal Guardsmen? Of course not! I hate to even bring this up, since 1967 was kind of my era, but yes, we had putrid songs back then that became big hits, and here's one of them!

Again, like I sometimes do, I wonder if any of the Guardsmen went on to bigger and better things. I could do a Google search, but I'm thinking that would be rather pointless.

So, okay, here you go:



I really like Gladys Knight, but I don't get why she didn't just pick her own new songs, rather than trying to outdo Marvin Gaye (which no one could), but this was number twenty-one in 1967, and just for the record, I still like Marvin's version a LOT better:



Okay, here's a revelation: I really only knew this song because of John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd. I don't know how or why I missed it; I mean I had "some" recollection of it, but it was never seared into my brain.

But watching this performance by Sam & Dave, I'm thinking, wow, this is WAY cooler than the Blues Brothers.



I always had this nagging suspicion that the Mamas & The Papas turned off Michelle's microphone before every performance. But I guess I was wrong.

I will say, though, that they probably should have. But, of course, she wasn't in the group because of her singing abilities. At least she had her looks to fall back on, since the group was totally dominated by two of the best pop singers ever ~ Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty. As this song will attest:



I completely forgot about this next song. And, (naturally)I also forgot about a group called "Music Explosion". That name is rather presumptuous, isn't it? I mean, I don't think the music is actually "exploding" here. It kind of just moves on in its own meandering way.

Someone commented on this video that they didn't know that Kevin Bacon was in the band. Kudos! You (YouTube poster) win an honored place in the Shelly/Lissa trademarked game called, "The Face Is Familiar".



Number twenty-five is a song that holds fond memories for me. Sure, it was twenty-five, which doesn't seem like a high number, but I liked the Cowsills, especially because my older brother did a mean imitation of the many hand gestures the group used in performing this song.

Sure, most people don't remember the Cowsills. If they remember them at all, it's because of the weird makeup of the band. MOM was part of it! I think the deal was, the kids just wanted to form a band, and Mom said, oh, no you don't! I've heard about that show biz culture! None of MY kids will fall into that den of iniquity.

So, of course, the kids, industrious as kids can be, said, "Hey Mom! Why don't you be in the band with us?" And Mom, unable to resist the many temptations of the celebrity life, said, "Oh, me?? Why, I never.....Okay!"

And Dad, of course, never got another home-cooked meal for the rest of his life. And Shirley Jones sent a nice thank-you letter to Mama Cowsill, for the idea for a new TV sitcom titled, "The Partridge Family". So, full circle, as they say.



So, there we go. We've reached number twenty-five for the year 1967.

And believe it or not, there are many big hits to come!

And many that you will remember even more than the ones featured here.

Yes, 1967 was kind of a seminal year in rock (pop) music.

So, stay tuned for Part 3 of the "Summer of Love" revisited.