Keep America Beautiful, Get A Haircut! Part Four

Above:  Li'l Abner creator Al Capp takes aim at the counterculture in a 1968 comic.

Here are a few tunes documenting the toxic levels of contentiousness that characterized relations between the youth movement and much of middle America in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

There are are couple of tunes that don't strictly adhere to the hippie hater formula though.  Jay Mesco's Generation Gap tells the story of a father who is appalled by his son's counterculture tendencies but reads a book called How To Build A Bridge Across The Generation Gap and promptly grows a beard and begins wearing striped flairs in a desperate attempt to fit in.  And in Charlie Daniels' first person Uneasy Rider (1973), it's Charlie himself who is picked on by intolerant rednecks.

Tom Harvey  -  It's The Shape The World's In  (2:27)

Merv Shiner  -  Protest  (2:51)

Leon Womack  -  Far Left  (2:06)

Jay Mesco  -  The Generation Gap  (2:27)

Charlie Daniels  -  Uneasy Rider  (5:18)

             

Previous Beware Of The Blog dispatches on this topic can be found at the following links:  KABGAH Pt 1, KABGAH Pt 2, KABGAH Pt 3 and Santa's A Hippie.

Comments

[Dan]

Another brilliant and welcome blast of American zany, Greg.

[Listener Greg G.]

Thanks, Dan.

[andy]

Jesus! I knew what "Uneasy Rider" was as soon as I read the description--I've been trying to figure out the name of this song for forever now, having heard it all the time growing up in Atlanta. They used to play it on "Psychedelic Psaturdays," of all things. Thanks!

[Wavy Gary]

Bet Your Sweet Bippy I'M A Hippy - The Wrest --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUgZsvEUKf8

[EasyEW]

Interesting that you should illustrate this entry with a Lil' Abner, since a recent Mark Evanier blog entry had a quote from one of Al Capp's employees about how Al turned from a Kennedy-loving liberal into an ultra-righty because the conservatives' speaking engagements paid better.

[Parq]

Kind of ironic to hear that Charlie Daniels in light of his current public persona. He'd be the first to skin a hippy alive nowadays.

[Justbeamensch]

In 1966, The Beach Bums, an ad hoc group featuring a young Bob Seger, recorded "The Ballad of the Yellow Beret". The song was a send-up of "The Ballad of the Green Berets", chronicling the adventures of a draft dodger. The record was withdrawn after a cease and desist letter from Sadler.[from Wiki]