The whole spirit of Hair in one scene. Maybe the whole spirit of the 60′s right there. That’s what Hair meant to be, a musical, comical manifesto of the hippie generation. But if the 60′s was all it meant, it wouldn’t hold up very well today, and I think that it does. Not just because we’re supremely nostalgic for everything besides our own times. Because the spirit of rebellion stomping on the fine china of establishment is timeless and universal. We wanted to kick high society in the balls in 1969 and we still do. We still want a dance on the table with George Berger.
Actually has nothing to do with the Hare Krishna religion, except possibly in making mockery of religiousness generally. In this sequence from the film Hair, Claude experiences an LSD-induced dream sequence. Claude’s Midwestern fantasy of a traditional white wedding is chaotically interrupted by his shocking new hippie friends. The message is clearly; let go of your old-fashioned values and expectations. The pomposity of the church wedding is obsolete, as is your ideal of the blushing bride. Your life is about to become crazier than you could ever expect. And chanting the Hare Krishna chant is just as ridiculous as the old church rituals. Though Hare Krishna was just coming into popularity in the West during the Sixties, but it was already ripe for parody. The writers of Hair changed the chant to suit themselves, and I for one still find their line “I am high on you-know-what” hilarious. In fact the only thing that prevents this sequence from being completely perfect is the nagging fact that LSD doesn’t actually cause rolling blackout-style hallucinations like that. I don’t know hard you’d have to fry your brain to descend into a dream state that deep, but in my experiments I’ve never come even close. On the other hand, you can’t really blame the filmmakers for using an LSD trip as an excuse to produce a good old fashioned out-and-out dream sequence. Because the real effects of acid are slightly less videogenic and less conducive to choreographed social metaphors.
More about the importance of hair, from the movie on that very topic. The musical Hair dates back from a time when having long hair genuinely meant something. Everything was a revolution in the sixties; music, hair, clothing. Our anything-goes current condition is a result of that. I won’t get into deep political issues. One thing that hasn’t been the same since the so-called youthquake is how people dress and present themselves. It’s hard to imagine, but not that long ago, there were very strict expectations of how one ought to dress. According to status, according to age. According to everything. Hair is about the ending of those times when a long haired man or a woman in pants could expect to be denied service, barred from public places, spat upon, or infinitely worse. It’s about the freedom of a generation to draw the line on conformity and express itself. The fallout is the sight of middle aged fat people wearing shorty-shorts in public, but that in itself is a victory. When I was overseas (in Ukraine) a couple of years ago I witnesses a conformity of dress not seen in America since the fifties. Everyone was slender, chic and stylish, but everyone looked exactly alike. I breathed a sigh of relief landing back on American shores. Americans may not always dress well, but we dress to express ourselves, not to merge facelessly into the safety of a crowd. It’s only one of many legacies from a turbulent time. No wonder there’s so many songs about hair.
I once saw, in the days of print media when such things were much more impressive, this song topping some humorist’s list of the most terrible songs ever recorded. To be specific, this was in the nineties, the humorist was Dave Barry, and he dedicated several columns to exploring what the called “the issue of song badness”. In those days when most people still read their humor columns on paper, a column that someone had taken the trouble to type and publish still had some semblance of credibility, even if the author was Dave Barry. Personally, I loved Barry’s column and agreed with most of his opinions on song badness. But it was a little shocking to find a song that I’d always adored considered one of the all-time worst. With a little thought though, I had to admit, Good Morning Starshine is pretty retarded. Lyrically and musically it not only fails to reach the wit and thoughtfulness of James Rado and Jerome Ragni’s other work, but doesn’t even reach the high standards required by some of the lesser Muppets. But such objective critical question aside, it still somehow never fails to make me happy. Perhaps because Hair is such a great movie that anything associated with it is bathed in reflected affection, or because its own shameless silliness is inherently charming in and of itself, but Good Morning Starshine might be the best bad song we all love to sing along to.
I don’t know how realistic this is a portrayal of a sixties ‘happening’, but it looks very appealing in the Hair movie. Most likely real happenings weren’t choreographed by Twyla Tharp, nor so highly populated by pretty people. I suppose the movie rather glamorizes the hippie movement that swept America in the 60s/70s. There’s plenty of survivors around who never stopped congratulating themselves on how cool they were in ’69, but it’s probably true that the majority didn’t ‘tune in’ or ‘drop out’ and witnessed the counterculture from the safety of their suburban rec rooms. Happenings still happen, though diminished in cultural prominence, and their elders are sticking admirably to the values they established. It’s a social movement like any other; faulty and complex, enduring and memorable. It takes a shiny movie musical to make you sit up and go “damn I wish I was there!”
A song from the movie Hair. It might not be one of the most outstanding songs from that movie, but it’s such a great scene. But don’t listen to me, I think all the scenes in that movie are great. Total love. With the music and the costumes and the message, it’s right about the perfect movie.
Is this song racist? Or is it empowering? I think it’s meant to be empowering, in a humorous way. Clearly, Hud is acknowledging and laughing at negative stereotypes, even embracing them as a part of his identity. Nevertheless, it’s still a song that has the n-word in it, and a cause of intense embarrassment and shame to anyone caught listening to it in public. I have no idea whether or not anyone would construe it as offensive. Residual white guilt precludes me from opening up that particular can of worms. Goddam it, I wasn’t even born in this country, with its stupid neverending racial hangover. There is no reason to feel weird listening to a song that intelligently appropriates the n-word for parodist purposes. It’s a fucking good song.
O ne of my favorites from Hair, the movie. This one always cracks me up. Someone needed to disclose gayness in the military and musical theatre is the way to do it. Pictured is Marsha Hunt, star of the original stage production.
The opening salvo from Milos Forman’s film version of the famous musical. A highlight among highlights, notable for some really excellent costumes. This is often heard on oldies stations performed by The Fifth Dimension in a medley with Let the Sunshine In. Their cover is maybe a taming of the material, but it also brings in a cool gospel dimension. Super cheesy sixties videomaking alert below!
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