- Bright colors, flowers, peace, happiness, smiley faces, & other things come to mind when one thinks of hippies. Hippies were free spirits, living without the rules of society and proclaming their ideas of love and happiness. Well known for their drug use & their ideas of free love, they were tended to look down upon by the 'straight' members of society, who wanted them to clean up their act. LSD was their drug of choice, acid trips being all the rage at the time. It is important to note that drug use was not illegal at this time and drugs were available in huge supply.
- Well known hippies of the time included peeople such as Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary, who both promoted ideas of enlightenment via LSD trips. Bands such as the Grateful Dead were hailed as champions of the music scene. The Maharishi, who enlightened such famous people as The Beatles, was looked upon as an all knowing powerful entity who had all of the answers to life's questions.
- Listening to music became a whole new expeerience, thanks to the hippies. No longer were songs taken as they seemed- now songs were listened to at different speeds, backwards, forwards, etc. Hidden messages were found, lyrical codes were cracked, and everyone felt more aware and connected because of it. Classic examples of this include the "real" meaning of The Beatles' "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"- the experience of a LSD trip.
- Amusing drug rumors that floated around during that time.
- Important events tied to the hippie movemeent include the San Francisco Human Be-In in January 1967 and Woodstock. LSD was given to anyone who attended the Be-In & the event served as an important day in hippie history, confirming to themselves and the rest of the country that their movement meant something and was going somewhere. Everyone who attended experienced a great sense of togetherness and a new-found sense of revolution. As far as Woodstock is concerned, Jerry Garcia [the Grateful Dead] has been quoted as saying "The thing about Woodstock was that you could feel the presence of time travelers from the future who had come back to see it. You could sense the significance of the event as it was happening. There was a kind of swollen hisoricity-- a truly pregnant moment. You definetly knew that it was a milestone; it was in the air." This music festival took place in August 1969 & was not intended to be free, but it ended up being free after the ticket booths were torn down. It is well known as being a hippie festival, full of drugs, but with a sense of peace attached to it; although it had it's fair share of crime & debauchery, those aspects are not focused on.
- Woodstock Set Lists.
[For some unknown reason, that link does NOT want to work. If it messes up, try this instead.]
- Although most hippies were caucasian, theyy viewed themselves as being red men & allied themselves with Indians whenever possible. Hippie communes sprung up, based on Indian reservations. These communes had their own sets of rules, which they had to have in order to exist in the first place and continue to be self-sufficient. Women, for example, were expected to do all of the cooking & to have children, who were given abnormal names such as Moonbeam.
