The Summer of Love Turns 40

All you need is love -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I was just a ten year old Air Force brat when 1967's Summer of Love took place. At that young age I was unable to appreciate, much less partake in the amazing cultural phenomenon. 1969's Woodstock is frequently cited as the seminal Earth-shaking event in American Rock history but nay -- Woodstock is the offspring of that certain summer, that summer of California Dreamin' that took place two years earlier. The Summer of Love actually started as nothing more than a marketing gimmick for the June '67 Monterrey Music Festival. To help promote the event in May '67, The Mamas and Papas' John Phillips penned a little song with a big impact: San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair). Scott McKenzie's eloquent recording of the song became a #1 hit and it served as a quasi-invitation for hippies worldwide to converge in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco for the summer.

The Monterrey Music Festival dovetailed with several other amazing things. An event called the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park got the ball rolling in January of '67. Then the Beatles came forth with the drug-influenced, George Martin-produced tour-de-force known as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There was already a certain hippie momentum and the Beatles' magnum opus (arguably the best album in Rock history) added fuel to the fire. Basically, the whole world converged on San Francisco that summer -- people from New Zealand, Europe and everywhere else. There were hippies to be sure, but also tourists, gawkers, soldiers and middle aged people. Some of the drug-addled attendees actually thought that utopia was to occur then and there. It's easy to see why. They had free food, free love and even a free clinic (which still operates to this day). There was even a Free Store which gave basic supplies to anyone in need.

As all good things must, the Summer of Love came to an end. Overcrowding, crime and drug problems began to take a toll. Those ultimate wet blankets, practical people and realists, all had to go back to school and back to their jobs. It turned out that you couldn't give everything away free, forever without something like that pesky Social Contract becoming necessary. Nevertheless, and you knew a nevertheless was coming, the Summer of Love was beautiful in both its utopian intentions and its musical expression. Nothing since has held a candle to the "turning on" that happened that summer in Haight-Ashbury. In 1987, the 20th anniversary of Sergeant Pepper and the Summer of Love, the album was released in CD format. Wags the world over argued over the question, "Is love all you really need?" Sociologists and pragmatists everywhere claimed that you need money, work, social security a sound roof and central heating. They finally approached the expert himself, George Harrison, to seek his opinion. George answered without any hesitation at all: "Yes, all you need is Love". Thank you Mr. Harrison; this blog author is in whole-hearted agreement with that lyric. The Summer of Love was a perfect antidote to a world rocked by racial strife and the Viet Nam War. Some 40 years later, we are rocked by the war in Iraq -- maybe it's time to revisit Haight-Ashbury and its themes. I'll close with my favorite bumper sticker from the era:

"Make love, not war".

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