Books, Songs, Poems that tell you about being a Hippie without being about Hippies

It predates me, and the hippie movement as well, but I would recommend On The Road by Jack Kerouac, which came from the 50's Beat movement.

 

This is none of the above, but the comedian Lenny Bruce had a lot of interesting things to say.

 

Does anybody remember "A Child's Garden of Grass" ?

 

"All You Need is Love" and "The End"

 

"Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell: "Pave paradise and put up a parking lot"
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also

"Where do the Children Play?" by Cat Stevens
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Yes Sonnysays, I too remember "A Child's Garden of Grass". Do you remember all the great comix like Mr. Natural, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Johnny Marijuanaseed?

 

Two songs come to mind that are still quite relevant today.

Buffalo Springfields "For What It's Worth"

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

And, REO Speedwagon's "Golden Country"


Golden country your face is so red
With all of your money your poor can be fed
You strut around and you flirt with disaster
Never really carin just what comes after
Well your blacks are dyin but your back is still turned
And your freaks are cryin but your back is still turned
You better stop your hidin or your country will burn
The time has come for you my friend
To all this ugliness we must put an end
Before we leave we must make a stand

Mortgage people you crawl to your homes
Your security lies in your bed of white foam
You act concerned but then why turn away
When a lady was raped on your doorstep today
Well your blacks are cryin but your back is still turned
And your freaks are dyin but your back is still turned
You better stop your hidin or your country will burn
The time has come for you my friend
To all this ugliness we must put an end
Before we leave we must make a stand, oh yeah......

Golden country your face is so red
With all of your money your poor can be fed
You strut around and you flirt with disaster
Never really carin just what comes after
Well your blacks are dyin but your back is still turned
And your freaks are cryin but your back is still turned
You better stop your hidin or your country will burn
The time has come for you my friend
To all this ugliness we must put an end
Before we leave we must make a stand

 

I do remember those comics and Playboy's Let's Make a Dope Deal board game. And Arlo Guthrie's "Alices Restaurant."

David Peel and the Lower East Side: "Up Against the Wall, Motherf***ker"

 

When I made that last post I suddenly remembered David Peel's song, Happy Mother's Day:

"Happy Mother's Day,
Happy Mother's Day,
I am your son,
I am a runaway."

Let's not forget Janis Ian's Society's Child. It was banned from most radio stations for years.

 

The Beat movement evolved into the Hippie movement.

 

Sonnysays when you mentioned the song; “Happy Mother's Day” it reminded me of the Steppenwolf song; “Snow Blind Friend” with the line;
Someone call his parents his sister or his brother
And they’ll come to take him back home on a bus
And he’ll always be a problem to his poor and puzzled mother
But he’ll always be another one of us

 

A really beautiful and wise (fiction) book from the 60s which IS about hippies - but a lot more besides- is Divine Right's Trip, by Gurney Norman. It's still in print, I believe. It's a sort-of cross between Richard Brautigan and Tom Robbins - but it's quite serious, in a lot of ways. Definitely recommended.

 

he only had a dollar to live on till next monday,so he spent it on some comfort for his mind.....did you say you think he's blind...
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god i love that song...and yes i'm still a problem to my poor and puzzled mother!

 

And how about the line from “Snow Blind Friend”;

He said he wanted heaven but praying was too slow
So he bought himself a ticket on an airline make of snow

Now, how about the Paul Simon song "Still crazy after all these years"

I fear I'll do some damage one fine day
But I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers
Still crazy after all these years

Wait, let me check....Yep, I'm still crazy after all these years!

 

The vereve's bittersweet symphony: It's all about the system.

 

you actually know that song?! i'm VERY proud of you little lady! GREAT TUNE!

 

lol, Everyone over here knows that song, but most don't love it...
Also people are strange by the doors

 

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, by Paul Reps is a book that parts of keep popping up in my life when I least expect it.

 

The work of the late Kurt Vonnegut epitomizes (is that a word?) the rebellion of the 60s. He mostly wrote about anti-war, anti-establishment, anti-industrial themes. Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle, for example.

And then there was Hunter S. Tompson with his-mostly autobiographical-tales of wild and crazy, drug induced adventures. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is one.

 

Speaking of Kurt Vonnegut does anyone remember which book it was that he talked about true and false “curaracs” (dreadfully misspelled)? Where a false one was a random group of people that belong to the same group like a club or a graduation class and a true one is a group people that where meant to be together, such as when you meet someone and its feels like you have always known them and you where meant to meet them.

And not to completely highjack the thread; how about;
Taj Mahal’s “Take A Giant Step”

Remember the feeling as a child
When you woke up and morning smiled
Its time its time its time you felt like that again

There is just no percentage in remembering the past
Its time you learned to live again and love at last
Come with me leave your yesterday your yesterday behind
And take a giant step outside your mind