Songs from my youth: Hair, the musical

When I was in my teens, one of my first exposures to pop culture was listening to the Radio RAAF Butterworth over the 1445khz medium wave band on my transistor. It was wonderful listening to music that the staid Radio Malaysia English Service could not play in those days.

This is one of my favourite albums from that era. I missed out on buying the record in the 1970s but this was among the first compact discs that I acquired soon after I bought my CD player in the late 1980s: the soundtrack from the tribal love rock musical Hair. I've often wondered why people bothered to prefix the name of this musical with the "tribal love rock". Is it necessary? Not anymore in today's society, I reckon.

Anyway, I do not expect to see any stage performance of Hair at any time soon. The closest I got to experiencing the show was to watch the film version in the cinema, starring Treat Williams, in the 1980s.

Hair spawned many musical hits by various artists. The Fifth Dimension started the ball rolling with the medley "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In", the Cowsills had their rollicking fun with the title track "Hair", Oliver ruled the airwaves with his "Good Morning Starshine", Nina Simone sang her version of "Ain't Got No/I Got Life" and Three Dog Night crooned away with "Easy To Be Hard".

There are other musical gems from this album, such as this song from the film version which I've linked from YouTube. Listen carefully to the lyrics. Oh yes, in case you want to know, this is Sodomy, the current flavour in Malaysia.