Sunday Morning Cruising – 2 Wakeup Videos

I think I am going to start this as a weekly trippy Sunday morning thing. I’m usual up early anyway so may as well do something semi-productive with my time.  So to start what I think may be the first of a weekly thing, two very contrasting musical styles this morning – John Denver’s Thank God I’m a Country Boy and Good Morning Starshine from Hair.

Both songs are products of the flower-power age of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but geared towards very different audiences – funnily enough. Denver’s originally released in 1974 on Back Home Again and a live version recorded at the Universal Amphitheatre in LA, included on his 1975 album, An Evening with John Denver. It was the live version which was to bring fame to the John Martin Sommers song and went to No. 1 on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles & the Hot 100, topping both charts for one week only. I like it for it’s simplicity.

Good Morning Starshine , from a single from the musical (1966)/movie (1979) Hair.  Hair is the story of the “tribe”, a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the “Age of Aquarius” living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. The song however, is recognised the world over as one of those quintessential flower power type songs that, depending on your taste, provides permission to wear dungarees and bell bottomed trousers with tie-dyed shirts. It has appeared in lots and lots of movies over the years most recently in the Tim Burton’s remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Another useless trivia point, it has featured twice in The Simpsons – once in 1997 in The Springfield Files, where Leonard Nimoy, Chewbacca, Dana Scully and Fox Mulder all sing Good Morning Starshine (the later two being of X-Files fame); and the second in 2001, in Simpson Safari. I know it more for being in the movie Connie and Carla (2004) as part of the fight scene. So without further adieu – here goes…

John Denver – Thank God I’m a Country Boy

From the Movie “Hair” – Good Morning Starshine