Whenever I hear this song, I feel ridiculously teary, and when I watch this video the hair rises up on my arms despite the goofiness of it all and now I'm here -- in San Francisco. I imagine I should have been born ten years earlier and might have danced in the streets with flowers in my hair.
I remember the media trying SO hard to make that time in our history a thing of wrongness and danger and it was just impossible. Every image they brought to us made us want even more to be a hippie.
ReplyDeleteIt was a very strange time. Half of the news was about the Viet Nam war and it was horrible and bloody and there was Nixon and he was so putrid and the other half was about the hippies and well...
Which side did you want to be on?
I was around 10 years old at the time, living 90 miles south of SF. For my Halloween costume, I was a hippie. I put flowers in my hair, my dad's old army blanket wrapped around me, a peace sign hanging around my neck. It was as close as I could get....
ReplyDeleteYAYAYAYAYYAYYAYAYAY!!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd you picked the MOST spectacular weekend imaginable for your visit!
I keep living a life like this and keep hoping that one day it will happen again. Only this time it will last forever and ever.
ReplyDeleteThat takes me back - buffalo sandals, caftans, floppy hats and VW beetles (mine was robin's egg blue.) I still haven't dug out those old photos of mine. One of these days...
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful time! That is one of my favorite cities in the West. The light, the architecture, the food, the culture, the water, blue skies...enjoy it all.
ReplyDeleteI was there, 9th and Delores, up on the hill in a " Painted Lady". I wore a long empire waisted dress made of an Indian tapestry and a little blue beaded band around my long blond hair. It was heaven, it was another world. And like Birdie says, I too long for it to come back and last forever.
ReplyDeleteYou would have fit in perfectly, Elizabeth - you would have led the way :) ENJOY your time there! I'm sure that city will love you.
I love this song too and it makes me cry but because I was homeless when was there my memories are not as sweet as they could be (some are many are ) but they get sweeter as I grow older and random dementia kicks in.
ReplyDeletexo
You'd have loved it---and maybe make that fifteen years earlier, it was sweetest when it was new.
ReplyDeleteIn May of 1967 when this was released I was 16 and a flower child. We made clothes out of Indian tapestries, wore rimless rose colored glasses and listened to Janis, Jimi and Donovan. My gigantic big toe, however, never fit in to those sandals featured in this video. Meditation helped me overcome the crushing disappointment of this sad fact. And flip flops.
ReplyDeleteThat was the year I graduated from high school. I really did think we were all on the verge of something new.
ReplyDeleteI too was younger, but so remember and love this song. A decade or so later my son was born in San Francisco.
ReplyDeleteI was born in '66, so this song was already an oldie by the time I heard it. But I can't help but feel some longing for that time, even if it's idealized! (What the heck is that robe he's wearing?!)
ReplyDeleteThis was playing on the radio in 1968 when I lived in D.C., what a year to be there, part of what was called The New Left. I moved back home to L.A. via San Francisco to say goodbye to my baby brother, emigrating to Australia. I know what Birdie means. We believed that revolution could happen, that love could happen. I think whatever was going on then was real, that the veil which has since fallen back into place was lifted or thinned and we truly saw other possibilities. Such thoughts have filled my mind the past 24-hours. I think something is afoot. So glad you posted this.
ReplyDelete