The Hippie movement appeared in the United States, in the 60´s decade. However, to understand the reasons of the appearing of the movement, some facts of the past have to be taken into account. In the 50´s, the world had passed through a big economical depression and two world wars; and this changed people´s way of thinking. Also, in USA it appeared the consumption culture. These facts make people react, and in the 50´s it appeared the Beat Generation, considered as the precursors of the Hippie Movement. Later on, in the 60´s, United States started participating in the Vietnam War; this was probably the fact that impulse the movement. Young people started reacting taking the ideas of the Beat Generation and the music of that time, and started protesting against the war, the racism, the poverty, and the lack of women rights. The beginning of the movement was in the year 1964 in San Francisco. For the Hippies, peace was the goal they persecuted trough protest and music festivals. They wanted to change USA way of thinking, life style, and culture of consumption. They used long hair and colorful clothes as a way of reflecting their movement. Drugs were also a big part of the movement, because it was a reactionary generation. The hippies wanted an utopian society in which they were allowed sexual liberties, and all kinds of differences (racial, class, social status, etc.) In music, some artists like Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, took the folk music roots and started doing protest lyrics against war and consumption; this impulse the movement. The movement started to grow around USA, and expanded trough the world; they started appearing Hippies all around the world and musicians of different countries started composing protest and reactionary music. That´s how they organized important music festivals like the Newport Folk Festival, and of course Woodstock.
Woodstock was the biggest music festival in the history. They attended half million people most of them hippies. It lasted three days and it was the “three days of peace and music festival”. Woodstock is known as the high point of the hippie movement. Many important hippie artist like “The who”, The Doors” and Janis Joplin, presented and shared their message in the festival. They are lots of artist that were part of the hippies, inspired, or were inspired by the movement in a way. The most recognized of this artist are: The Beatles and John Lennon, who caused a big impact on United States society, and sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, became part of the Hippie movement; they composed many songs that influenced the movement such as “Let it be” and “Imagine”. The Doors were a rock icon; they composed reactionary songs and participated in Woodstock. Bob Dylan, was one of the first artist that combined folk music with protest lyrics; he composed “Blowi´n in the wind”, that became an anthem in the fighting of the civil rights, and “Times are changing”. Jimi Hendrix is considered one of the most important musicians in the movement, he participated on Woodstock, and is considered a music legend; he wrote “Purple Haze” and “Voodoo Chile”. Janis Joplin, also one of the most important artist, who played folk music. Joni Mitchel was a Canadian folk singer, who was specialist in writing cynical lyrics; she did also play on Woodstock festival. The Rolling Stones, such as The Beatles, gave influences to the young people with their songs; the most recognized one in the movement was “Satisfaction” that reflected social anguishes. Carlos Santana, participated in Woodstock, and mixed rock music with Latin rhythms.The name Hippie comes from the Beat Generation phrase I´m Hip. For this phrase some people started calling Beat Generation members, the “Hiptres”, and latter on, when the 60´s movement appeared, people started calling the last movement the hippies.
By: María Camila Palacio Chiriví
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