Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter turns to an overview of the hippy culture. This time, the author enters the ‘hippy scene’ of a large industrial city in late 1969 and follows up by making some general observations of ...
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This chapter turns to an overview of the hippy culture. This time, the author enters the ‘hippy scene’ of a large industrial city in late 1969 and follows up by making some general observations of the scene; engaging in participant observation; soaking up the general hippy ambience; and participating in casual talk, directed talk, and various taped group discussions. The chapter is an exploration of the hippy identity. Notably, the hippies did not live in a world of personal certainty and had a far from certain grip on their own identities. Where in the ‘straight’ world this is a cause for concern, for the hippies it was a source of richness and the base for expanded awareness.Less
This chapter turns to an overview of the hippy culture. This time, the author enters the ‘hippy scene’ of a large industrial city in late 1969 and follows up by making some general observations of the scene; engaging in participant observation; soaking up the general hippy ambience; and participating in casual talk, directed talk, and various taped group discussions. The chapter is an exploration of the hippy identity. Notably, the hippies did not live in a world of personal certainty and had a far from certain grip on their own identities. Where in the ‘straight’ world this is a cause for concern, for the hippies it was a source of richness and the base for expanded awareness.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
A classic of British cultural studies, this book takes the reader into the worlds of two important 1960s youth cultures — the motor-bike boys and the hippies. The motor-bike boys were working-class ...
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A classic of British cultural studies, this book takes the reader into the worlds of two important 1960s youth cultures — the motor-bike boys and the hippies. The motor-bike boys were working-class motorcyclists who listened to the early rock 'n' roll of the late 1950s. In contrast, the hippies were middle-class drug users with long hair and a love of progressive music. Both groups were involved in an unequal but heroic fight to produce meaning and their own cultural forms in the face of a larger society dominated by the capitalist media and commercialism. They were pioneers of cultural experimentation, the self-construction of identity, and the curating of the self, which, in different ways, have become so widespread today. This book develops an important and still very contemporary theory and methodology for understanding the constructions of lived and popular culture. Its new preface discusses the ties between the cultural moment explored in the book and today.Less
A classic of British cultural studies, this book takes the reader into the worlds of two important 1960s youth cultures — the motor-bike boys and the hippies. The motor-bike boys were working-class motorcyclists who listened to the early rock 'n' roll of the late 1950s. In contrast, the hippies were middle-class drug users with long hair and a love of progressive music. Both groups were involved in an unequal but heroic fight to produce meaning and their own cultural forms in the face of a larger society dominated by the capitalist media and commercialism. They were pioneers of cultural experimentation, the self-construction of identity, and the curating of the self, which, in different ways, have become so widespread today. This book develops an important and still very contemporary theory and methodology for understanding the constructions of lived and popular culture. Its new preface discusses the ties between the cultural moment explored in the book and today.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter discusses the role of drugs in hippy culture. Drugs were used massively by the hippies, and there was a wide and well-used range of terms for types and sub-types of various drugs. There ...
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This chapter discusses the role of drugs in hippy culture. Drugs were used massively by the hippies, and there was a wide and well-used range of terms for types and sub-types of various drugs. There was also avid discussion about the effects of various drugs, and great interest taken in their supposed different properties. It was common for drug experiences to be recounted, marked over, and analysed at great length. Weird or unusual experiences were given particular attention. Here, the chapter contends that the essence of the dialectical role of drugs in hippy culture is that they supplied the raw material of open and exceptional experience which could be interpreted in appropriate social and cultural ways to reflect and develop other aspects of consciousness and activity so as to further modify the drug experience, and so on.Less
This chapter discusses the role of drugs in hippy culture. Drugs were used massively by the hippies, and there was a wide and well-used range of terms for types and sub-types of various drugs. There was also avid discussion about the effects of various drugs, and great interest taken in their supposed different properties. It was common for drug experiences to be recounted, marked over, and analysed at great length. Weird or unusual experiences were given particular attention. Here, the chapter contends that the essence of the dialectical role of drugs in hippy culture is that they supplied the raw material of open and exceptional experience which could be interpreted in appropriate social and cultural ways to reflect and develop other aspects of consciousness and activity so as to further modify the drug experience, and so on.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter reveals the associations between the hippy culture and a certain kind of ‘progressive’ pop music. In sheer quantitative terms, there was a massive interaction between the two. The ...
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This chapter reveals the associations between the hippy culture and a certain kind of ‘progressive’ pop music. In sheer quantitative terms, there was a massive interaction between the two. The hippy's relation to this music was not arbitrary. They deliberately chose their musical environment — post Sergeant Pepper, ‘progressive’ music — and went to great lengths to preserve it and to exclude Top twenty and commercial music. Only specific kinds of music were chosen because they — and not others — were able to hold, develop, and return those meanings and experiences which were important in the hippy culture. Thus, they preferred a music which both attempted timelessness and an abstract, complex shape that could mirror and momentarily complete their attempts to encompass a post-capitalist timeless mysticism.Less
This chapter reveals the associations between the hippy culture and a certain kind of ‘progressive’ pop music. In sheer quantitative terms, there was a massive interaction between the two. The hippy's relation to this music was not arbitrary. They deliberately chose their musical environment — post Sergeant Pepper, ‘progressive’ music — and went to great lengths to preserve it and to exclude Top twenty and commercial music. Only specific kinds of music were chosen because they — and not others — were able to hold, develop, and return those meanings and experiences which were important in the hippy culture. Thus, they preferred a music which both attempted timelessness and an abstract, complex shape that could mirror and momentarily complete their attempts to encompass a post-capitalist timeless mysticism.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This concluding chapter contains some responses to this volume, as formulated by a hippy acquaintance of the author. It begins with a list of people the respondent has known, as well as the manner of ...
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This concluding chapter contains some responses to this volume, as formulated by a hippy acquaintance of the author. It begins with a list of people the respondent has known, as well as the manner of their deaths. From here, the chapter embarks on a meditation of the value of existence, particularly of those living on society's margins. This chapter also details some considerations made near Christmas-time, as the same respondent looks back over the past seven years and then returns to the present, directly addressing the author and offering their own thoughts on the subjects explored in this book. Finally, the chapter closes with some concluding insights as well as an anecdote.Less
This concluding chapter contains some responses to this volume, as formulated by a hippy acquaintance of the author. It begins with a list of people the respondent has known, as well as the manner of their deaths. From here, the chapter embarks on a meditation of the value of existence, particularly of those living on society's margins. This chapter also details some considerations made near Christmas-time, as the same respondent looks back over the past seven years and then returns to the present, directly addressing the author and offering their own thoughts on the subjects explored in this book. Finally, the chapter closes with some concluding insights as well as an anecdote.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter explores how the two youth cultures under discussion — the motor-bike boys, sometimes known as ‘rockers’, and the hippies, sometimes known as ‘heads’ or ‘freaks’ — form a ‘dialectic ...
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This chapter explores how the two youth cultures under discussion — the motor-bike boys, sometimes known as ‘rockers’, and the hippies, sometimes known as ‘heads’ or ‘freaks’ — form a ‘dialectic relationship’ with cultural life. It argues that it is only in the factories, on the streets, in the bars, in the dance halls, in the tower flats, in the two-up-and-two-downs that contradictions and problems are lived through to particular outcomes. Furthermore, it is in these places where direct experience, ways of living, creative acts and penetrations — cultures — redefine problems, break the stasis of meaning, and reset the possibilities somewhat for all of us. And this material experience is embedded in the real engagement of experience with the world: in the dialectic of cultural life.Less
This chapter explores how the two youth cultures under discussion — the motor-bike boys, sometimes known as ‘rockers’, and the hippies, sometimes known as ‘heads’ or ‘freaks’ — form a ‘dialectic relationship’ with cultural life. It argues that it is only in the factories, on the streets, in the bars, in the dance halls, in the tower flats, in the two-up-and-two-downs that contradictions and problems are lived through to particular outcomes. Furthermore, it is in these places where direct experience, ways of living, creative acts and penetrations — cultures — redefine problems, break the stasis of meaning, and reset the possibilities somewhat for all of us. And this material experience is embedded in the real engagement of experience with the world: in the dialectic of cultural life.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter offers some final insights on the dialectic relationships performed by both the motor-bike and hippy cultures, and identifies what constitutes as their cultural politics. Both cultures ...
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This chapter offers some final insights on the dialectic relationships performed by both the motor-bike and hippy cultures, and identifies what constitutes as their cultural politics. Both cultures took the unexplored side, the double edge, of commodities and cultural items around them to express and develop their own meanings. In the course of this cultural development they were also, however, exploring some of the massive contradictions and tensions in modern society. These cultures do not follow the guidelines of official culture, nor do they obey rules provided from outside or above. They are not even often recognized as unified cultures by agencies who pick up various fragmented aspects as ‘social problems’. They have rejected or never received what is known, valued, and revered. They live amid provided, cheap commodities. For all this, they have the essential, rare, irreverent gift of profanity: creativity.Less
This chapter offers some final insights on the dialectic relationships performed by both the motor-bike and hippy cultures, and identifies what constitutes as their cultural politics. Both cultures took the unexplored side, the double edge, of commodities and cultural items around them to express and develop their own meanings. In the course of this cultural development they were also, however, exploring some of the massive contradictions and tensions in modern society. These cultures do not follow the guidelines of official culture, nor do they obey rules provided from outside or above. They are not even often recognized as unified cultures by agencies who pick up various fragmented aspects as ‘social problems’. They have rejected or never received what is known, valued, and revered. They live amid provided, cheap commodities. For all this, they have the essential, rare, irreverent gift of profanity: creativity.
Coleman Julie
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199567256
- eISBN:
- 9780191595073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199567256.003.0009
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics, Lexicography
Slang only becomes associated with young people in general during the period covered by this volume. The production of dictionaries of youth slang was fuelled by fears of juvenile delinquency and by ...
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Slang only becomes associated with young people in general during the period covered by this volume. The production of dictionaries of youth slang was fuelled by fears of juvenile delinquency and by the influence of ‘black’ music on white teenagers. However, many glossaries of youth slang from this period were produced as tools in marketing and advertising campaigns.Less
Slang only becomes associated with young people in general during the period covered by this volume. The production of dictionaries of youth slang was fuelled by fears of juvenile delinquency and by the influence of ‘black’ music on white teenagers. However, many glossaries of youth slang from this period were produced as tools in marketing and advertising campaigns.
Patricia Appelbaum
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469623740
- eISBN:
- 9781469624990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469623740.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter covers the 1960s and early 1970s, a time when Francis was imagined as a hippie, a rebellious youth in search of authenticity. It shows how the early hippie movement in San Francisco, and ...
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This chapter covers the 1960s and early 1970s, a time when Francis was imagined as a hippie, a rebellious youth in search of authenticity. It shows how the early hippie movement in San Francisco, and the 1967 Summer of Love, constructed new visions of Francis from available cultural materials. It then turns to the place of Francis in a left-wing, alternative-church movement. One far-reaching statement of the hippie vision was Franco Zeffirelli’s 1973 movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon. The chapter discusses its imagery and its effects on viewers, then and since. Finally, the chapter explains the significance of Francis for the newly emerging ecology and environmentalist movements. All of the 1960s movements revived, in a new key, older questions about poverty, money, materialism, peace, nature, community, and religion.Less
This chapter covers the 1960s and early 1970s, a time when Francis was imagined as a hippie, a rebellious youth in search of authenticity. It shows how the early hippie movement in San Francisco, and the 1967 Summer of Love, constructed new visions of Francis from available cultural materials. It then turns to the place of Francis in a left-wing, alternative-church movement. One far-reaching statement of the hippie vision was Franco Zeffirelli’s 1973 movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon. The chapter discusses its imagery and its effects on viewers, then and since. Finally, the chapter explains the significance of Francis for the newly emerging ecology and environmentalist movements. All of the 1960s movements revived, in a new key, older questions about poverty, money, materialism, peace, nature, community, and religion.
Sharif Gemie and Brian Ireland
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526114624
- eISBN:
- 9781526132437
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526114624.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This is the first history of the hippy trail. Based on interviews and self-published works, it records the joys and pains of budget travel out to Kathmandu, India, Afghanistan and other ‘points east’ ...
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This is the first history of the hippy trail. Based on interviews and self-published works, it records the joys and pains of budget travel out to Kathmandu, India, Afghanistan and other ‘points east’ during the 1960s and 1970s. It’s written in a clear, simple style, and it provides a detailed analysis of the motivations and the experiences of the hundreds of thousands of young people who travelled eastwards. The happiness and calm that many found is noted, but the work also has a critical edge: it notes the limitations of the travellers’ journeys and the mistakes they made. We discuss the rapidly changing meanings and connotations of the term ‘hippy’, and set these themes in the context of the 1960s counter-culture.
The work is structured around four key debates: were the travellers simply motivated by a search for drugs? Did they encounter love or sexual freedom on the road? Were they just tourists? Did they resemble pilgrims? Finally a fifth chapter considers how the travellers have been represented in films, novels and autobiographical accounts.
We’ve written this book with two main audiences in mind: firstly, people with some personal interest in the trail, such as the travellers themselves (or their children); secondly, students taking courses concerned with the 1960s and its counter-cultures.Less
This is the first history of the hippy trail. Based on interviews and self-published works, it records the joys and pains of budget travel out to Kathmandu, India, Afghanistan and other ‘points east’ during the 1960s and 1970s. It’s written in a clear, simple style, and it provides a detailed analysis of the motivations and the experiences of the hundreds of thousands of young people who travelled eastwards. The happiness and calm that many found is noted, but the work also has a critical edge: it notes the limitations of the travellers’ journeys and the mistakes they made. We discuss the rapidly changing meanings and connotations of the term ‘hippy’, and set these themes in the context of the 1960s counter-culture.
The work is structured around four key debates: were the travellers simply motivated by a search for drugs? Did they encounter love or sexual freedom on the road? Were they just tourists? Did they resemble pilgrims? Finally a fifth chapter considers how the travellers have been represented in films, novels and autobiographical accounts.
We’ve written this book with two main audiences in mind: firstly, people with some personal interest in the trail, such as the travellers themselves (or their children); secondly, students taking courses concerned with the 1960s and its counter-cultures.
Mark Liechty
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226428802
- eISBN:
- 9780226429137
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226429137.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
Far Out examines how generations of counterculturally inclined Westerners have imagined Nepal as a land untainted by modernity and its capital, Kathmandu, a veritable synonym of Oriental Mystique. ...
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Far Out examines how generations of counterculturally inclined Westerners have imagined Nepal as a land untainted by modernity and its capital, Kathmandu, a veritable synonym of Oriental Mystique. The book examines how the idea of Nepal changes through time in ways that reflect shifting forms of countercultural longing in the West, and how Nepalis have engaged the changing images of Nepal that tourists bring with them. Through three sections that span the post WW II decades of roughly 1950 to 1980 the book examines an early tourism phase in which jet-setting postwar elites came to Nepal in search of Raj-era Oriental fantasies; Nepal’s emergence as an exotic outpost of hippie counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s; and the country’s rebranding as an adventure destination in which tourists pay for packaged renewal, whether on a trekking trail or in a meditation course. Focusing on tourism as encounter, the book asks what tourism meant to both the foreigners who came to Nepal and the Nepalis who had to make sense of some of the most bizarre characters and (counter) cultural trends that the twentieth century produced. Even if the anti-modernist fantasy Nepals came and left with the tourists who imagined them, Nepalis who encountered those fantasies became adept at selling foreigners their own dreams thereby transforming tourism into a domestic industry. Far Out documents the convergence between the deep-seated Western longing for an imagined spirituality located in the remote, high Himalayas, and Nepali desires to tap into global modernity.Less
Far Out examines how generations of counterculturally inclined Westerners have imagined Nepal as a land untainted by modernity and its capital, Kathmandu, a veritable synonym of Oriental Mystique. The book examines how the idea of Nepal changes through time in ways that reflect shifting forms of countercultural longing in the West, and how Nepalis have engaged the changing images of Nepal that tourists bring with them. Through three sections that span the post WW II decades of roughly 1950 to 1980 the book examines an early tourism phase in which jet-setting postwar elites came to Nepal in search of Raj-era Oriental fantasies; Nepal’s emergence as an exotic outpost of hippie counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s; and the country’s rebranding as an adventure destination in which tourists pay for packaged renewal, whether on a trekking trail or in a meditation course. Focusing on tourism as encounter, the book asks what tourism meant to both the foreigners who came to Nepal and the Nepalis who had to make sense of some of the most bizarre characters and (counter) cultural trends that the twentieth century produced. Even if the anti-modernist fantasy Nepals came and left with the tourists who imagined them, Nepalis who encountered those fantasies became adept at selling foreigners their own dreams thereby transforming tourism into a domestic industry. Far Out documents the convergence between the deep-seated Western longing for an imagined spirituality located in the remote, high Himalayas, and Nepali desires to tap into global modernity.
Patrick Barr-Melej
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469632575
- eISBN:
- 9781469632599
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469632575.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This book illuminates modern Chilean history with an unprecedented chronicle and reassessment of the sixties and seventies. During a period of tremendous political and social strife that saw the ...
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This book illuminates modern Chilean history with an unprecedented chronicle and reassessment of the sixties and seventies. During a period of tremendous political and social strife that saw the election of a Marxist president followed by the terror of a military coup in 1973, a youth-driven, transnationally connected counterculture smashed onto the scene. Contributing to a surging historiography of the era’s Latin American counterculture, Psychedelic Chile draws on media and firsthand interviews in documenting the intertwining of youth and counterculture with discourses rooted in class and party politics. Focusing on “hippismo” and an esoteric movement called Poder Joven, the study challenges a number of prevailing assumptions about culture, politics, and the Left under Salvador Allende's “Chilean Road to Socialism.” While countercultural attitudes toward recreational drug use, gender roles and sexuality, rock music, and consumerism influenced many youths on the Left, the preponderance of leftist leaders shared a more conservative cultural sensibility. This exposed, a degree of intergenerational dissonance within leftist ranks. And while the allure of new and heterodox cultural values and practices among young people grew, an array of constituencies from the Left to the Right berated counterculture in national media, speeches, schools, and other settings. This public discourse of contempt ultimately contributed to the fierce repression of nonconformist youth culture following the coup.Less
This book illuminates modern Chilean history with an unprecedented chronicle and reassessment of the sixties and seventies. During a period of tremendous political and social strife that saw the election of a Marxist president followed by the terror of a military coup in 1973, a youth-driven, transnationally connected counterculture smashed onto the scene. Contributing to a surging historiography of the era’s Latin American counterculture, Psychedelic Chile draws on media and firsthand interviews in documenting the intertwining of youth and counterculture with discourses rooted in class and party politics. Focusing on “hippismo” and an esoteric movement called Poder Joven, the study challenges a number of prevailing assumptions about culture, politics, and the Left under Salvador Allende's “Chilean Road to Socialism.” While countercultural attitudes toward recreational drug use, gender roles and sexuality, rock music, and consumerism influenced many youths on the Left, the preponderance of leftist leaders shared a more conservative cultural sensibility. This exposed, a degree of intergenerational dissonance within leftist ranks. And while the allure of new and heterodox cultural values and practices among young people grew, an array of constituencies from the Left to the Right berated counterculture in national media, speeches, schools, and other settings. This public discourse of contempt ultimately contributed to the fierce repression of nonconformist youth culture following the coup.
Mark Liechty
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226428802
- eISBN:
- 9780226429137
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226429137.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
After 1965 Nepal saw a steep rise in tourist numbers and a steep drop in the age of those arrivals. Reflecting the first wave of the postwar “baby boom” generation, these new “budget tourists” found ...
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After 1965 Nepal saw a steep rise in tourist numbers and a steep drop in the age of those arrivals. Reflecting the first wave of the postwar “baby boom” generation, these new “budget tourists” found in Nepal an exotic, mystical, and remote destination in which to create a countercultural outpost. From a tiny trickle of young "shoe-string" travelers that managed to make their way to Kathmandu in the 1950s, to a small stream of "beatnik" tourists in the early 1960s, it wasn't until about 1965 that the city emerged as a bona fide youth destination. By the late 1960s Kathmandu was one of the principle stops on the trans-Eurasian "Hippie Trail." Because Kathmandu was roughly half-way between Europe and Southeast Asia—and for North Americans as far away from home as one could get—the route was often simply called the “Road to Kathmandu.” Beatnik era classics like Kerouac’s On The Road and The Dharma Bums both reflected and incited a generation’s longing for travel and experience which, in turn, helped generate Kathmandu’s countercultural hippie scene by the late 1960s.Less
After 1965 Nepal saw a steep rise in tourist numbers and a steep drop in the age of those arrivals. Reflecting the first wave of the postwar “baby boom” generation, these new “budget tourists” found in Nepal an exotic, mystical, and remote destination in which to create a countercultural outpost. From a tiny trickle of young "shoe-string" travelers that managed to make their way to Kathmandu in the 1950s, to a small stream of "beatnik" tourists in the early 1960s, it wasn't until about 1965 that the city emerged as a bona fide youth destination. By the late 1960s Kathmandu was one of the principle stops on the trans-Eurasian "Hippie Trail." Because Kathmandu was roughly half-way between Europe and Southeast Asia—and for North Americans as far away from home as one could get—the route was often simply called the “Road to Kathmandu.” Beatnik era classics like Kerouac’s On The Road and The Dharma Bums both reflected and incited a generation’s longing for travel and experience which, in turn, helped generate Kathmandu’s countercultural hippie scene by the late 1960s.
Edward Macan
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195098884
- eISBN:
- 9780199853236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195098884.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This book's goal is twofold. First, it examines how progressive rock creates its artistic messages through specific combinations of music, visual imagery, and verbal expression. Second, it explores ...
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This book's goal is twofold. First, it examines how progressive rock creates its artistic messages through specific combinations of music, visual imagery, and verbal expression. Second, it explores the social meanings of these artistic messages, especially in terms of the relationship between progressive rock as a style and the English hippie subculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Thus, it does not resort to musical examples, and the musical analysis is of a descriptive rather than a graphic nature. The book can only respond that musical analysis for its own sake is not central to the arguments here, and that not resorting to graphic analysis enables it to address a diverse audience—readers with backgrounds in sociology, cultural theory, the sixties, or rock history and criticism—united mainly by their lack of grounding in musicology.Less
This book's goal is twofold. First, it examines how progressive rock creates its artistic messages through specific combinations of music, visual imagery, and verbal expression. Second, it explores the social meanings of these artistic messages, especially in terms of the relationship between progressive rock as a style and the English hippie subculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Thus, it does not resort to musical examples, and the musical analysis is of a descriptive rather than a graphic nature. The book can only respond that musical analysis for its own sake is not central to the arguments here, and that not resorting to graphic analysis enables it to address a diverse audience—readers with backgrounds in sociology, cultural theory, the sixties, or rock history and criticism—united mainly by their lack of grounding in musicology.
Edward Macan
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195098884
- eISBN:
- 9780199853236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195098884.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The counterculture consisted largely of young, middle-class white people who had consciously rejected the lifestyle of their parents in favor of more experimental paths. Hippies were notorious for ...
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The counterculture consisted largely of young, middle-class white people who had consciously rejected the lifestyle of their parents in favor of more experimental paths. Hippies were notorious for their dislike of organization. Nonetheless, despite the importance of dress, visual, and verbal expression, it was above all in the realm of musical style that the counterculture forged its self-identity. The psychedelic style represented a decisive challenge to the styles that dominated the pop airwaves between the early and mid-1960s. While psychedelic music's emphasis on soloing and lengthy instrumental sections was obviously indebted to rhythm & blues and jazz, though, its eclecticism, its mixing of different styles, was something quite new. These factors all had a great impact on the development of progressive rock as a style. There seem to have been at least three distinct wings of psychedelic music in England. One wing of English psychedelic music was dominated by Cream, the Yardbirds, and Jimi Hendrix.Less
The counterculture consisted largely of young, middle-class white people who had consciously rejected the lifestyle of their parents in favor of more experimental paths. Hippies were notorious for their dislike of organization. Nonetheless, despite the importance of dress, visual, and verbal expression, it was above all in the realm of musical style that the counterculture forged its self-identity. The psychedelic style represented a decisive challenge to the styles that dominated the pop airwaves between the early and mid-1960s. While psychedelic music's emphasis on soloing and lengthy instrumental sections was obviously indebted to rhythm & blues and jazz, though, its eclecticism, its mixing of different styles, was something quite new. These factors all had a great impact on the development of progressive rock as a style. There seem to have been at least three distinct wings of psychedelic music in England. One wing of English psychedelic music was dominated by Cream, the Yardbirds, and Jimi Hendrix.
Edward Macan
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195098884
- eISBN:
- 9780199853236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195098884.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter examines the progressive rock style as it emerged during its “golden age” of roughly 1970 to 1976. It shows that the progressive rock style is indebted to the classical tradition in the ...
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This chapter examines the progressive rock style as it emerged during its “golden age” of roughly 1970 to 1976. It shows that the progressive rock style is indebted to the classical tradition in the realms of instrumentation, structure, and virtuosity, and demonstrates a clear link between the genre's modal harmony and the legacy of folk music. It also highlights a number of clear homologies that can be drawn between progressive rock as a musical style and the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. For instance, progressive rock's juxtaposition of “masculine” and “feminine” sections can be seen to symbolize many of the conflicts that were of great importance to the hippies. Furthermore, a clear connection can be drawn between the style's wayward modal harmony and the counterculture's acid-induced sense of time (or timelessness).Less
This chapter examines the progressive rock style as it emerged during its “golden age” of roughly 1970 to 1976. It shows that the progressive rock style is indebted to the classical tradition in the realms of instrumentation, structure, and virtuosity, and demonstrates a clear link between the genre's modal harmony and the legacy of folk music. It also highlights a number of clear homologies that can be drawn between progressive rock as a musical style and the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. For instance, progressive rock's juxtaposition of “masculine” and “feminine” sections can be seen to symbolize many of the conflicts that were of great importance to the hippies. Furthermore, a clear connection can be drawn between the style's wayward modal harmony and the counterculture's acid-induced sense of time (or timelessness).
Edward Macan
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195098884
- eISBN:
- 9780199853236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195098884.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Both the albums and the concert experience have a strong visual dimension; in progressive rock certain conventions are repeated often enough both in album cover art and in concerts that it is not ...
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Both the albums and the concert experience have a strong visual dimension; in progressive rock certain conventions are repeated often enough both in album cover art and in concerts that it is not inappropriate to speak of a visual style that governs the genre. This chapter explores album cover art and the concert experience to reflect the two principal manners in which audiences encountered progressive rock. In both realms this chapter shows how the hippies' fondness for hallucinogens fostered the development of a surrealistic visual style. The chapter also addresses the way in which progressive rock's music and visuals are coordinated to convey a unified artistic vision and, in live performances, to create a ritualistic, almost liturgical experience.Less
Both the albums and the concert experience have a strong visual dimension; in progressive rock certain conventions are repeated often enough both in album cover art and in concerts that it is not inappropriate to speak of a visual style that governs the genre. This chapter explores album cover art and the concert experience to reflect the two principal manners in which audiences encountered progressive rock. In both realms this chapter shows how the hippies' fondness for hallucinogens fostered the development of a surrealistic visual style. The chapter also addresses the way in which progressive rock's music and visuals are coordinated to convey a unified artistic vision and, in live performances, to create a ritualistic, almost liturgical experience.
Edward Macan
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195098884
- eISBN:
- 9780199853236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195098884.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter is not primarily concerned with exploring to what degree—if any—the hippies' belief system can be said to constitute a “religion.” Rather, it focuses on how the symbols mentioned by ...
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This chapter is not primarily concerned with exploring to what degree—if any—the hippies' belief system can be said to constitute a “religion.” Rather, it focuses on how the symbols mentioned by Davin Seay—drawn from mythology, fantasy, and science fiction literature, and a host of sacred texts from the past—are used in progressive rock lyrics as symbols of resistance and protest: used to symbolize both an idealized society toward which we might strive and a nightmarish technocracy which the hippies believed is on the verge of overwhelming the person. The chapter also considers the impact of surrealism on progressive rock lyrics and how progressive rock and heavy metal each came to develop certain mutually exclusive elements of the psychedelic legacy.Less
This chapter is not primarily concerned with exploring to what degree—if any—the hippies' belief system can be said to constitute a “religion.” Rather, it focuses on how the symbols mentioned by Davin Seay—drawn from mythology, fantasy, and science fiction literature, and a host of sacred texts from the past—are used in progressive rock lyrics as symbols of resistance and protest: used to symbolize both an idealized society toward which we might strive and a nightmarish technocracy which the hippies believed is on the verge of overwhelming the person. The chapter also considers the impact of surrealism on progressive rock lyrics and how progressive rock and heavy metal each came to develop certain mutually exclusive elements of the psychedelic legacy.
Edward Macan
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195098884
- eISBN:
- 9780199853236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195098884.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
By considering the contribution of the colleges, universities, and the Anglican Church to the formation of progressive rock, this chapter shows how the style perfectly reflects its origins in an ...
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By considering the contribution of the colleges, universities, and the Anglican Church to the formation of progressive rock, this chapter shows how the style perfectly reflects its origins in an intellectual, southeastern English youth-based subculture; it could have hardly developed elsewhere. Nonetheless, progressive rock in England would have achieved only a fraction of its ultimate success had it not found massive commercial acceptance in the United States. This chapter examines the reception of progressive rock not only by its original audience, English hippies, but also by the large, youth-based American taste public which made the style a substantial commercial phenomenon between the early and mid-1970s. The chapter also considers the social significance of progressive rock's classical/rock fusion by looking at its compositional methods, which unite African-American music's allowance for spontaneity and individual expression with European classical music's potential for large-scale organization and expansion.Less
By considering the contribution of the colleges, universities, and the Anglican Church to the formation of progressive rock, this chapter shows how the style perfectly reflects its origins in an intellectual, southeastern English youth-based subculture; it could have hardly developed elsewhere. Nonetheless, progressive rock in England would have achieved only a fraction of its ultimate success had it not found massive commercial acceptance in the United States. This chapter examines the reception of progressive rock not only by its original audience, English hippies, but also by the large, youth-based American taste public which made the style a substantial commercial phenomenon between the early and mid-1970s. The chapter also considers the social significance of progressive rock's classical/rock fusion by looking at its compositional methods, which unite African-American music's allowance for spontaneity and individual expression with European classical music's potential for large-scale organization and expansion.
Sharif Gemie and Brian Ireland
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526114624
- eISBN:
- 9781526132437
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526114624.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
A survey of the travellers introduces this book. It includes reference to a database concerning 80 journeys out to the east. The chapter explores the historical context of the 1960s, the ...
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A survey of the travellers introduces this book. It includes reference to a database concerning 80 journeys out to the east. The chapter explores the historical context of the 1960s, the counter-culture, the development of the term ‘hippy’ and its various meanings. Basic information about the travellers (such as average age, gender, and destination) is given. Existing approaches and understandings of the 1960s are explored. The start date (1957) and end date (1978) of our study are explained. The differences between the various travellers are noted, and the qualities which united them are also identified. Most of our sample of 80 would have refused to identify themselves as ‘hippies’: this point is considered and discussed. The existing studies of the trail and similar topics are briefly considered.Less
A survey of the travellers introduces this book. It includes reference to a database concerning 80 journeys out to the east. The chapter explores the historical context of the 1960s, the counter-culture, the development of the term ‘hippy’ and its various meanings. Basic information about the travellers (such as average age, gender, and destination) is given. Existing approaches and understandings of the 1960s are explored. The start date (1957) and end date (1978) of our study are explained. The differences between the various travellers are noted, and the qualities which united them are also identified. Most of our sample of 80 would have refused to identify themselves as ‘hippies’: this point is considered and discussed. The existing studies of the trail and similar topics are briefly considered.
