I am currently 17 and over the past year or so I've been really fascinated with music and ideologies from the time period of the 60s and 70s. From the little literature I've been able to find access, all of them claim that music was a driving force in the movement. I seriously question that thought with all of the political protests and the idea of free love in my opinion being the major part of what the hippy movement was all about. So I have been wondering what you guys think on whether or not music and drugs were a driving force in the hippie movement or whether it is just symbolic of things that hippies liked?
I'm going to take the 'hippie movement' and replace it with the 'counter-culture movement', just because it's much broader and easier to explain. Also, I don't have any direct sources on hand, and most of what I've said is from memory of interviews, articles, clips, and figures from band documentaries, magazines (e.g. Rolling Stone) etc.
First things first, you have the popular acts that represented the hippie movement and the 1960s in general, the most popular being the Beatles. The Beatles had quite an impact on the movement, by way of popularising it and supporting it, and in some ways giving it an identity. Their 1967 album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', which was described by one critic as a 'decisive moment in Western civilisation' (take from that what you will...), exposed this new movement to the masses. It was from here the 'summer of love' begun, with the themes of love and togetherness, mixed in with bright colours and zany clothes, along with some LSD, became pillars of the counter-culture movement. The hippie movement in Britain essentially took off after this. That's not to say the people and foundations for it weren't there already - but simply that the ideas of the movement were sold to the public, by means of mass commercialisation and distribution of the Beatles' brand; to such an extent that within just a few months of release over 2 million people owned a copy of the album, becoming essentially the 'soundtrack of the year', and therefore the soundtrack for the summer of love.
Connected to this are the ideas addressed and explored throughout 1960s music, and those acts that didn't really popularise the counter-culture, yet were its originators and innovators. These included:
Creedence Clearwater Revival, who, in songs such as Fortunate Son and Bad Moon Rising, defined the anti-Vietnam, and more broadly anti-war stance, of the era, depicting the war's impact on soldiers and the coming of the bomb
Bob Dylan, one of the first true singer-songwriters and one who sung of the plights of his generation and the shittiness of the world. Songs such as 'Like A Rolling Stone' were simply massive hits, both commercially and in music circles, and these, coupled with many of his folk songs such as 'Time They Are A Changing', are where the civil rights/liberty and equality branch of the hippie movement is from. Dylan influenced a great number of people, and because of him alot of individuals went onto become singer-songwriters.
Psychedelic music as a whole is hugely responsible for the liberal views on drugs and their consumption. The music gave people huge impetus to get high on weed or trip out on some acid while listening to droning vocals and wah-wah guitars, like 'White Rabbit' by Jefferson Airplane. This obviously influenced the movement as the drugs and this new music, being weird and exotic, are symbolic of the wildness of it all.
Velvet Underground, perhaps the most contentious here as they were never avid supporters of the hippies. But they did represent the counter-culture in that they completely abandoned the constraints of the taboo, and sung about the most sexual things, like BDSM in 'Venus In Furs', and just bonkers topics in 'The Gift' (I won't spoil it for you!). This partly links to the sexual revolution of the 1960s as a whole, fueled by the development of the contraception pill in 1960. Sexual freedom was rife and explored by the young, and the VU's relentless singing of orgies and blowjobs led to many more underground bands forming in the 60s-70s, as the freedom to sing and play whatever you want soon became apparent.
Finally, there are the concerts. The best way to get people really enthusiastic about a movement is by having a big event. The first major one was Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, with Jimi Hendrix, the Who, the Troggs and Janis Joplin all performing to thousands, if not tens of thousands of people. Then you Filmore East, a venue which entertained the Allman Brothers, King Crimson, and CSNY, among others, from 1968-71, with many releasing live albums of their shows there. At last, we come to the big one - Woodstock, August 1969. Perhaps the event that most symbolises the whole bloody movement, with all its anarchy, beauty, size and liberty rolled into '3 days of peace and music'. Mostly every band I've mentioned before went to Woodstock, performing in front of around half a million people. All these festivals would have been a melting pot of ideas and peoples, with the crowds mixing together and growing in size, drawing greater media coverage, getting grander each time, and getting more young people going to festivals. In this sense, music brought people together in one place as a sort of public rally for the counter-culture.
So in conclusion, music impacted the counter-culture movement by way of popularising it, through mainstream bands such as the Beatles; through establishing the tenets and aims of the era, such as the opposition the Vietnam war, and carefree use of drugs; and by holding large music concerts, which increased the counter-culture's presence in society and their media coverage - two things that, only 4 months after Woodstock, would ultimately be part of the movement's downfall at Altamont in December 1969.