The Last Hippie

David Crosby is dead.

I never had any great love for Crosby as a person. By his own admission, he was often arrogant, abrasive and self-indulgent. He admitted that his former bandmates not only didn’t want to work with him anymore, they did not want anything to do with him. And yet there was that voice. Whether it was with CS&N, the Byrds or in his solo works, Crosby sang with an ethereal beauty that was both unique and unmistakable. Plus, oddly for someone who alienated those he worked with, his voice blended perfectly with his compatriots, generating a whole far greater than the sum of its parts.

But David Crosby was something more than his talent. He was also one of the last throwbacks to a lost era, the Sixties. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Crosby never seemed to change. He continued to let his freak flag fly long after he wrote Almost Cut My Hair in 1970. He was still the long-haired hippie freak at 80 that he was at 25. Even in his last interviews he brought to mind those days of rebellion and protest.

The term hippies came into use in the mid-1960’s. By 1967 it was a ubiquitous moniker for all that was white counterculture. It conjured up a longhaired boy, with ratty mismatched clothes, a headband and flowing beads, or a Twiggy like girl in bellbottoms with flowers in her hair. There was a chilled vibe to the hippie clan, ostensibly induced by significant drug use. An entire vocabulary came with the territory, with such phrases as “Far Out” and “Groovy” becoming hippie cliches. Woodstock, the event and the song, captured it all.

Almost from the start hippies were the subject of parody and caricature. The epitome of that ridicule was rendered by Dick Shawn as Lorenzo Saint DuBois (LSD to his friends) in the 1967 movie “The Producers”. LSD’s addlebrained rendition of Love Power at his audition for “Springtime for Hitler” captured perfectly the inane utopianism that was associated with hippies. They were out of touch dreamers who worshiped drugs, sex and rock and roll. Riding the Marrakesh Express, they weren’t to be taken seriously.

For me, growing up in the late 1960’s, hippies were a go to Halloween costume (along with Zorro). Just cut a hole in a blanket to wear like a poncho, put on a goofy wig, grab some flowers and you had an unbeatable disguise. Give me some candy, and I’ll flash you the peace sign.

Hippies were a convenient target for the silent majority backlash of the Nixon years. Reactionaries like Vice President Spiro Agnew could conveniently slander the lazy, smelly, atheistic, over privileged leaches-on-society who wanted nothing more than to lay on the grass in the park, floating Eight Miles High. They were a visible affront to all the God-fearing, hard-working Americans who pursued the American dream of a steady 9-to-5 job, a ranch home with a two-car garage and 3.2 kids playing in the yard.

Despite all the ridicule and the rhetoric, for many that came of age in the mid-1970’s, especially those of us with older siblings, the 60’s, and the hippie culture loomed large. There was so much change in that decade that it seemed to dwarf our middling time. The civil rights movement came to fruition and there was mass mobilization against the Vietnam war. More than that, there was a feeling that you could board Wooden Ships, throw off the strictures of a conforming society and develop your own personal style. It was a hard legacy to live up to.

Though a Long Time Gone, the sense that you do not have to accept society as given remains the legacy of the Sixties. The ubiquitous generational clashes often centered around the virtues of a steady job and a home centered existence. The hippies (and I am using that term broadly) demanded more. They wanted meaning more than they wanted stability. A regular income was not enough. You see this today in the current generation’s demand for work/life balance, and willingness to leave a job if they don’t think it can give them that.

The preeminence of youth remains with us as well. Advertising is either geared towards youth, or towards making us feel as if products can keep us young. Even many of the drug commercials, hawking some remedy for an age-related illness, will use young actors to convey the message that this miracle drug will not only is a cure, but a fountain of youth (as they spout off the litany of horrendous possible side effects).

Fashions also seem to recycle hippie chic. A sense of Déjà Vu, if you will. I laugh when I see someone heading into a club wearing jeans artfully ripped at the knees. More importantly, our entire notion of what is appropriate to wear when has changed. My mother would never have even thought of going to a restaurant without a nice dress, and my father always was in a coat and tie. Now, you are liable to see anything from hoodies to sports jerseys at any restaurant, and no one bats an eye.    

The social engagement of the young is also a legacy of the sixties. Aging hippies used to complain that today’s whippersnappers did not have the sense of protest they used to have (OK Boomer). That did seem to be the case through the 80’s and 90’s, but there were not prominent issues to coalesce around. Once those issues emerged, it was clear that the Sixties generation had made sure to Teach Your Children well. Whether it be abortion rights or police brutality, today’s youth are ready and willing to take to the streets. More importantly, they think it is their prerogative and obligation to do so.

Agitation by groups for civil rights has become prolific. Most notably the women’s rights and gay rights movements drew inspiration and power from the Afro-American struggles and have significantly changed the way our society views these groups. As much as some people want to roll back what these groups have secured, they are fighting against a tide that may briefly ebb but will come back stronger than ever. Mainly because the majority of today’s young people already see these rights as a given.

David Crosby was somehow able to encapsulate the feeling of the Sixties in his songs and in his public persona. While his death robs us of one of the most visible icons of that era, the impact of the Sixties will continue indefinitely. My guess is that will be true until someone can answer a question posed by Elvis Costello. “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding”?