Songs of "Hippie Hopefulness"

50 years of hindsight.

 

What about R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People". It seems like the band got to hate it but it's a fun little song to me. Maybe not hippie... but uplifting... well.

 

We had a very lengthy discussion about "Love The One You're With" a couple of years back. I agree with your point of view - the earlier relationship has been severed (by the female apparently), so the singer is advising the broken-hearted man to stop feeling sorry himself and get back in the game. I was in the extreme minority with that viewpoint - most folks go with the free love/infidelity angle. I don't, in part, because any man romantic enough to write and record the songs Stephen did in 1969-1970, and then put a beat-up stuffed giraffe with obvious sentimental value on his album cover, was not a one night stand kind of guy.

 

While it's not about a dystopian future, this song is about a post-apocalyptic future. I guess there is hopefulness in the two sailors from different "sides" meeting peacefully, but it's under pretty bleak circumstances (with people on the shore who didn't escape on the ships glowing from radiation). I love this song, but Jackson Browne's response song "For Everyman" (cited by someone upthread), to me, is a better much example of "hippie hopefulness".

 

I'm not incapable of being persuaded; another close listen seems to be in order.

 

Well, the clincher to me is that someone still IN a relationship doesn't "sit crying over good times that you had". Only someone who's been dumped does that.

 

@RayS There was a discussion on the song? Must have been when I wasn't here much. Free love yes, I can see that, in the chorus. It was the spirit of the times. But infidelity...nah, like you, I don't see that either.

 

Most of the track on your list, I agree but singled out this particular track. How could it be about hope? It's one of the bleakest tunes worthy of the Velvets if you ask me.

 

No hippie pad of the 1960s or 1970s would be complete without a poster of "Desiderata"! Here's the 1971 hit version by Les Crane.

 

Barclay James Harvest - Taking Some Time On

 

Thanks for reading the list and pointing this song out!
The lyrics belie the happy, trippy music - making it a brilliant commentary on the hopeful and happy themes in the other song titles. It can go bad- "too much "sun" can burn.
I put it there for irony - and you wisely knew it was different and could not have known I put it there to be ironic.
Sort of a forerunner of a later Traffic song, Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.

 

Sadly, I've known some who do . . . some people can't let go . . . or be let go of . . . don't understand it, but I've seen it.

But it's probably way off topic.

 

The Guess Who Share The Land:

 

Here's an obscure Elton b-side (from 2004) I thought of last night but talked myself out of posting, because he's exposing some of the negative aspects of modern society, but balancing that with a desire to improve. Now that I've seen some other posts, I think I'll include it after all.

Our summer of love has come and gone
Us sixties kids are getting on
We had a dream way back then
No reason why we can't dream again​

I figure when Elton's name-checking John Lennon in a plea for peace, it might fit!

 

One of my all-time favs in this category:SUGAR MOUNTAIN- Neil Young

► 7:12
Neil Young - Sugar Mountain (Live at Farm Aid 1995) - YouTube
YouTube » › watch









Oh to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon
You're leaving there too soon

It's so noisy at the fair
But all your friends are there
And the candy floss you had
And your mother and your dad

Oh to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon
You're leaving there too soon
There's a girl just down the aisle
Oh to turn and see her smile
You can hear the words she wrote
As you read the hidden note

Oh to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon
You're leaving there too soon

Now you're underneath the stairs
And you're giving' back some glares
To the people that you met
And it's your first cigarette

Oh to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon
You're leaving there too soon

Now you say you're leaving' home
'Cause you want to be alone
Ain't it funny how you feel
When you're finding' out it's real?

Oh to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon
You're leaving there too soon

Songwriters
Neil Young

Published By
BROKEN ARROW MUSIC


Read more: Neil Young - Sugar Mountain Lyrics | MetroLyrics

 

I have a lot of candidates for this thread in my collection, but immediately thought that the Monkees' "A Better World", recorded just this year, was a perfect fit:



This is my thousandth post - it took me almost seven years. I'll have to pick up the pace if I ever want to earn my 10,000 post trophy.

 

O'Jays - Love Train
People all over the world
join hands.

 

Spanky & Our Gang "Like To Get to Know You" 1968

 

The original was great, but there was still a little hope in 1979, too. I love this version.

 

Temptations - Psychedelic Shack
People!
Let me tell you 'bout a place I know,
To get in it don't take much dough.
Where you can really do your thing yeah, yeah, yeah.