HAIR a Tribal Rock Musical, Marijuana, Sex, Nudity
Without Prejudice
No one knew how true the lyrics and controversy of HAIR the musical would become. I am posting the lyrics to 3 5 0 0 further on in this story. I doubt if Hair could ever be shown again in this world of political correctness, these days. Some of the words like Nigger and Black boys would be banned and I'm sure there would be protests for that rather than against a war.
But it was important for its time. The dawn of Aquarius was rising and the sun was shining in.
There was a definite feeling of change in the air when Hair first came out. I had travelled with my fiancé and friend to Sydney to see it. It was banned at the time in Melbourne because of its nude scene.
I must be the only person in the world who never saw the nudity, as at the time I was a vain little sixteen year old and no way, no how was I wearing glasses. We had to stand at the back to view the show as it was so booked out. My myopic eyesight could nit see as far as the stage, just a blur to me with halos around the lights. But I remember the music and the feeling of strong protest. That the changes were coming and that Vietnam was a disaster for the youth of that time.
I recently dated a man who was a little older than me. Two years, no biggy, and together, word for word we sang I Met A Boy Called Frank Mills, neither of us faltering or missing a word. It was that powerful. And lovely. We both laughed at our intense memory of such a sweet poignant simple song.
Standing out in our shared memory of a time when all things seemed possible.
My brother would go on to fight in Vietnam as a regular soldier, a time he chose to try and forget. Never have the words of the songs meant as much as they do to me now, written over 40 years ago, when Dylan was singing of the winds of change and the Hippies were in Haight Ashbury and my brother was struggling with just " Being There"
When he returned he was a changed man. He spoke of the Americans, mainly poor black boys who had their hands on all the best drugs. LSD, Marijuana, Speed, Heroin and readily available to all. He said things that the boys would say to the hookers, like,
" Do you want to suck the snot out of my fuck stick"
We were appalled. And fascinated. It seemed a world away from our sheltered lives in Australia. He was harder, tougher and brought back with him a reel to reel tape of Jesus Christ, Superstar, which we played endlessly, looping over and over in the eight track tape machine.
Hashish was readily available in those days and my by then husband partook of some with the British boys he worked with as a fencer. I didn't, too scared and ended up having to rescue him from a bath of rapidly cooling water as he screamed he could no longer feel his limbs. I had to sort of roll him out of the bath and drag him up the long wooden hall by his ankles.
He begged me to call for a Doctor but I realised he was just stoned, and told him so. I didn't smoke in those days and he did and he was just plain rat arsed. He was terrified and shook most of the night and after that vowed never to touch the stuff again. And pretty much didn't. When he gave up smoking cigarettes ( He vowed to give them up when they hit a dollar a pack ) I took them up with a vengeance.
And my brother ended up in a divorce which was so sad. He truly loved his wife, my husbands Sister and his 3 boys. And Hair become our anthem for change and protest to get our soldiers out of Vietnam and I am sure I became pregnant the long weekend we were in Sydney to watch Hair. 1970, so not only for me was Hair a significant musical to appreciate for it's music it also became a starting point for me to have the most treasured job I have ever had. Mother.
3 5 0 0
No one knew how true the lyrics and controversy of HAIR the musical would become. I am posting the lyrics to 3 5 0 0 further on in this story. I doubt if Hair could ever be shown again in this world of political correctness, these days. Some of the words like Nigger and Black boys would be banned and I'm sure there would be protests for that rather than against a war.
But it was important for its time. The dawn of Aquarius was rising and the sun was shining in.
There was a definite feeling of change in the air when Hair first came out. I had travelled with my fiancé and friend to Sydney to see it. It was banned at the time in Melbourne because of its nude scene.
I must be the only person in the world who never saw the nudity, as at the time I was a vain little sixteen year old and no way, no how was I wearing glasses. We had to stand at the back to view the show as it was so booked out. My myopic eyesight could nit see as far as the stage, just a blur to me with halos around the lights. But I remember the music and the feeling of strong protest. That the changes were coming and that Vietnam was a disaster for the youth of that time.
I recently dated a man who was a little older than me. Two years, no biggy, and together, word for word we sang I Met A Boy Called Frank Mills, neither of us faltering or missing a word. It was that powerful. And lovely. We both laughed at our intense memory of such a sweet poignant simple song.
Standing out in our shared memory of a time when all things seemed possible.
My brother would go on to fight in Vietnam as a regular soldier, a time he chose to try and forget. Never have the words of the songs meant as much as they do to me now, written over 40 years ago, when Dylan was singing of the winds of change and the Hippies were in Haight Ashbury and my brother was struggling with just " Being There"
When he returned he was a changed man. He spoke of the Americans, mainly poor black boys who had their hands on all the best drugs. LSD, Marijuana, Speed, Heroin and readily available to all. He said things that the boys would say to the hookers, like,
" Do you want to suck the snot out of my fuck stick"
We were appalled. And fascinated. It seemed a world away from our sheltered lives in Australia. He was harder, tougher and brought back with him a reel to reel tape of Jesus Christ, Superstar, which we played endlessly, looping over and over in the eight track tape machine.
Hashish was readily available in those days and my by then husband partook of some with the British boys he worked with as a fencer. I didn't, too scared and ended up having to rescue him from a bath of rapidly cooling water as he screamed he could no longer feel his limbs. I had to sort of roll him out of the bath and drag him up the long wooden hall by his ankles.
He begged me to call for a Doctor but I realised he was just stoned, and told him so. I didn't smoke in those days and he did and he was just plain rat arsed. He was terrified and shook most of the night and after that vowed never to touch the stuff again. And pretty much didn't. When he gave up smoking cigarettes ( He vowed to give them up when they hit a dollar a pack ) I took them up with a vengeance.
And my brother ended up in a divorce which was so sad. He truly loved his wife, my husbands Sister and his 3 boys. And Hair become our anthem for change and protest to get our soldiers out of Vietnam and I am sure I became pregnant the long weekend we were in Sydney to watch Hair. 1970, so not only for me was Hair a significant musical to appreciate for it's music it also became a starting point for me to have the most treasured job I have ever had. Mother.
3 5 0 0
Ripped open by metal explosion
Caught in barbed wire
Fireball
Bullet shock
Bayonet
Electricity
Shrapnel
Throbbing meat
Electronic data processing
Black uniforms
Bare feet, carbines
Mail-order rifles
Shoot the muscles
256 Viet Cong captured
256 Viet Cong captured
Prisoners in Niggertown
It's a dirty little war
Three Five Zero Zero
Take weapons up and begin to kill
Watch the long long armies drifting home
Prisoners in Niggertown
It's a dirty little war
Three Five Zero Zero
Take weapons up and begin to kill
Watch the long long armies drifting home
Ripped open by metal explosion
Caught in barbed wire
Fireball
Bullet shock
Bayonet
Electricity
Shrapnel
Throbbing meat
Electronic data
Borrwed from Wikipedia
Hair tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long haired hippies, living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society.
Hair tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long haired hippies, living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society.
Ultimately, Claude must decide whether to resist the draft as his friends have done, or to succumb to the pressures of his parents (and conservative America) to serve in Vietnam, compromising his pacifists principles and risking his life.
After an Off-Broadway debut in October 1967 at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and a subsequent run in a midtown discothèque space, the show opened on Broadway in April 1968 and ran for 1,750 performances. Simultaneous productions in cities across the United States and Europe followed shortly thereafter, including a successful London production that ran for 1,997 performances.
Since then, numerous productions have been staged around the world, spawning dozens of recordings of the musical, including the 3 million-selling original Broadway cast recording. Some of the songs from its score became Top 10hits, and a feature film adaptation was released in 1979.
A Broadway revival opened on March 31, 2009, earning strong reviews and winning the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for best revival of a musical. In 2008, Time magazine wrote, "Today Hair seems, if anything, more daring than ever."[3]
Hair was conceived by actors James Rado and Gerome Ragni. The two met in 1964 when they performed together in the Off-Broadwayflop Hang Down Your Head and Die, they began writing Hair together in late 1964.The main characters were autobiographical, with Rado's Claude being a pensive romantic and Ragni's Berger an extrovert. Their close relationship, including its volatility, was reflected in the musical. Rado explained, "We were great friends. It was a passionate kind of relationship that we directed into creativity, into writing, into creating this piece. We put the drama between us on stage."
Rado described the inspiration for Hair as "a combination of some characters we met in the streets, people we knew and our own imaginations. We knew this group of kids in the East Village who were dropping out and dodging the draft, and there were also lots of articles in the press about how kids were being kicked out of school for growing their hair long".[2] He recalled, "There was so much excitement in the streets and the parks and the hippie areas, and we thought if we could transmit this excitement to the stage it would be wonderful.... We hung out with them and went to their Be-Ins [and] let our hair grow."[8] Many cast members (Shelley Plimpton in particular) were recruited right off the street.[2] Rado said, "It was very important historically, and if we hadn't written it, there'd not be any examples. You could read about it and see film clips, but you'd never experience it. We thought, 'This is happening in the streets,' and we wanted to bring it to the stage."[4]
Rado and Ragni came from different artistic backgrounds. In college, Rado wrote musical revues and aspired to be a Broadway composer in the Rodgers and Hammerstein tradition. He went on to study acting with Lee Strasberg. Ragni, on the other hand, was an active member of The Open Theater, one of several groups, mostly Off-off Broadway, that were developing experimental theatretechniques.[9] He introduced Rado to the modern theatre styles and methods being developed at The Open Theater.[10] In 1966, while the two were developing Hair, Ragni performed in The Open Theater's production of Megan Terry's play, Viet Rock, a story about young men being deployed to the Vietnam War.[11] In addition to the war theme, Viet Rock employed the improvisational exercises being used in the experimental theatre scene and later used in the development of Hair.[6][12]
Rado and Ragni brought their drafts of the show to producer Eric Blau who, through common friend Nat Shapiro, connected the two with Canadian composer Galt MacDermot.[13] MacDermot had won a Grammy Award in 1961 for his composition "African Waltz" (recorded by Cannonball Adderley).[14] The composer's lifestyle was in marked contrast to his co-creators: "I had short hair, a wife, and, at that point, four children, and I lived on Staten Island."[8] "I never even heard of a hippie when I met Rado and Ragni."[4] But he shared their enthusiasm to do a rock and roll show.[4] "We work independently," explained MacDermot in May 1968. "I prefer it that way. They hand me the material. I set it to music."[15] MacDermot wrote the first score in three weeks,[7] starting with the songs "I Got Life", "Ain't Got No", "Where Do I Go" and the title song.[2] He first wrote "Aquarius" as an unconventional art piece, but later rewrote it into an uplifting anthem.[7]
