How much hippie is there in you and do you like "Get Together" by the Youngbloods & "San Francisco" by Scott Mackenzie?

(OK, I know it's not so simple, given that Dino Valente, who wrote "Get Together," was also one of the three or four people to claim credit for writing "Hey Joe," which has a vibe somewhat different from "Get Together"'s.)

and somewhere I was reading about those people originally calling themselves "hipsters" before the media called them hippies. imagine that!

right on, man. crank it up. Freedom Rock!!

Was thinking about this earlier today while reading the MC5 and Velvet Underground chapters of Please Kill Me. Counterculture in the 60's seemed to be way more *counter* than anything since then, including the punks. I mean, DNC '68! The Mason family! The Weather Underground!

The greasers. Who probably didn't call themselves greasers, but were called "greasers" by the freaks, who didn't know any better.

Er, I'm being flippant, and things differed from place to place, but I simply never heard anyone in the '60s refer to himself or herself as a "hippie," whereas I often enough heard people being called "hippie," with a tone and intent not much different from calling someone "faggot." But then, I was only eleven in 1965, which may have been a year when "hippie" was still viable as a self-description, and I wasn't a particularly hip eleven year old either. But anyway, the freaks/hippies were a rougher proposition than they're retrospective image has them being.

But my point about the music: "San Francisco" was a pop song calculated for the mainstream Top 40 - I think John Phillips wrote it - with a not-unappealing image of flower children; you could definitely distinguish it from rock songs like "Light My Fire" and "White Rabbit" (which were also marketed to the Top 40, of course). "Get Together" has a somewhat different story, as it was first recorded by Valente in 1964 and might have been written even earlier, the Youngbloods' version wasn't released until 1967, and it didn't hit until 1969, by which time it probably played to a more mainstream demographic than it would have five years earlier.

Renditions of "Get Together" that I've heard, in order of preference:
1. Youngbloods
2. Jefferson Airplane
3. We Five
4. H.P. Lovecraft (AVOID!)

Also, I've always resented that whole simplistic imaginary punk vs. hippie dichotomy that's shown up occasionally in rock writing since '77, and appreciate Frank's attempt to set the record straight as far as that goes. But ultimately, I'd consider the hippies/freaks antipathy towards Scott McKenzie/Monkees-style "plasticity" as silly and counterproductive as any pro-punk/anti-hippie sentiments. (And vice versa.)

I never liked the idea of hippies in high school, I couldn't stand admiring people for being that dumb. When I went to college & studied a bit of history, I quickly learned what Frank pointed out so well upthread. That sort of turned me around. I wonder if they made up the whole 'flower-child' image to hide the fact that the real hippies were kind of scary & evil.

There's a whole lot of hippie-freak in me, but really not a great deal of flower-child in me.

I like both songs, BTW.

but my affinities are more with pop, more mod than hippie I guess.

I spent my teenage years in preparation for becoming a hippie only to discover too late that the world had moved on. (After reading The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test I tried to organize my acid-dabbling friends into a Cincinnati high school Merry Pranksters.)Moving to Ann Arbor in 1976 introduced me to the non-mellow "high energy rock&roll" version of hippiedom. Thank god for PUNKROCK!

Everywhere is freaks and hairies
Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity
Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more

I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you

Population keeps on breeding
Nation bleeding, still more feeding economy
Life is funny, skies are sunny
Bees make honey, who needs money, monopoly

I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you

World pollution, there’s no solution
Institution, electrocution
Just black and white, rich or poor
Them and us, stop the war

I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you

pretty christian i'd think.

mostly though it's just your basic mystical hippie doggerel. but what a nice (dual) guitar sound!

i haven't heard that jesse colin young LP, what does it sound like? i think JCY lives in kona, hawaii now. or near there.

Love love love "Get Together" and am pretty fond of "San Francisco". The former for, well, everything, and the latter for the way he sings "Aw-aw-all those who come..." at the start of the last verse.

The Youngbloods' "Get Together," classic or dud?

well, i mean, i literally thought it WAS a hymn, written specifically for church. I didn't listen to the radio much as a pre-teen, and they sang it frequently in church, so that just made sense to me. until I learned otherwise I probably thought the same about "put your hand in the hand" (which was also definitely sung at folk masses) and maybe "spirit in the sky" (which may have been). (are there still folk masses where people sing those songs, by the way? i'm curious.) anyway, for some strange fluke of nature it was several years before i finally heard "get together" in a different, non-church-related context.

it's just him on acoustic guitar. from 1964, maybe? contemplative, moody. really pretty. he did have a great voice.

San Francisco is, for me, all about the bells.

it was a folk song before it was a rock song. pete seeger was the one who adapted it from the bible verse.

Talented singer and songwriter, Scott McKenzie, states Wikipedia, died on Saturday, August 18, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. In memory, be sure and wear some flowers in your hair!

Scott McKenzie was best known for singing the 1967 hit single, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)." It was written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas.

there's enough hippie in me to be sad about that.

Me too--didn't hear about that. Used really nicely in Monterey Pop. (Warning, if you're averse to them: many hippies.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhabYduqQ_A

Was there some kind of folk trio with Scott Mackenzie, John Stewart and John Phillips?

Oh I see. John Stewart rehearsed with the other two and wrote some songs with John Phillips, but then something happened with Scott Mackenzie and so John crept back to The Kingston Trio.

Thus robbing us of the presumptive Super Group A Scott & Two John's...

Yes. So we had to make do with Two Jacks and a Jill.

thanks to this revive for reminding me how much i love "Get Together" and making me play it a few times

I was among those 60s kids--not yet a freak; I was High on Life---who thought "hippies" were plastic, man (and knew from reading band director's issues of Downbeat in the school music room that it was an olde jazz tag for silly, clueness jazz noobs, like teenybopper was to me: all those Monkees kids "EEEEE!"). Thought it was a media hype if not invention, like ad campaigns for The Dodge Rebellion and The Pepsi Generation.
But I liked Scott McKenzie's voice. Still need to check out the Journeyman, who were him and his pal from way back, John Phillips and Dick Weissman. Wiki sez he coulda been in the original Mamas and Papas, but didn't want that much pressure.

John Phillips wrote and co-produced "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" for McKenzie...McKenzie released the single "Like an Old Time Movie", which Phillips wrote, composed, and produced, and which was a top-40 hit (number 24 on Billboard; number 27 in Canada). His first album, The Voice of Scott McKenzie, was followed with an album titled Stained Glass Morning. He stopped recording in the early 1970s, living in Joshua Tree, California and Virginia Beach, Virginia.

McKenzie wrote and composed the song "What About Me" that launched the career of Canadian singer Anne Murray in 1968.[9] (Murray's United States breakthrough, with Gene McLellan's "Snowbird", would not follow for several years.)

In 1986, he started singing with a new version of The Mamas and the Papas. With Terry Melcher, Mike Love, and John Phillips, he co-wrote "Kokomo" (1988), a number 1 single for The Beach Boys.

By 1998, he had retired from the road version of The Mamas and the Papas, and resided in Los Angeles until his death...

Also still want to check The Big Three, who was Denny,Cass,and Jim Hendricks. I do have the 2007 Collector's Choice s/t album by the Mugwumps, incl. The Three plus Zal Yanovsky and sometimes John Sebastian, although I don't think he's on it, maybe a harmonica solo (don't have CD nearby). It's really good and loud, maybe the first folk-rock album, as Denny claimed (released in '64, I think) tracklist is online:
1 Searchin'
2 I Don't Wanna Know
3 I'll Remember Tonight
4 Here It Is Another Day
5 Do You Know What I Mean
6 You Can't Judge a Book By the Cover
7 Everybody's Been Talkin'
8 Do What They Don't Say
9 So Fine

And still haven't heard a whole album by the Youngbloods, although always got into Mott The Hoople's cover of Jesse Colin Young's "Darkness, Darkness." Credit to Dino Valente/Chet Powers for writing "Get Together," though I liked Quicksilver Messenger Service more before he and his magic microphone joined up.

who ^were* Cass etc. sorry too High on Life still.