Hippies vs. Punks: Songs in the Key of Life and the End of the "Classic Period"

Tonight Hippies vs. Punks returns to 1976 as a year marked by a sense of completion, calm and repose for Aquarians. This state of satiety flows over into the next year. And it's in 1977 that turbulence begins anew and the Hippies finally, irrevocably, give up the ghost.

In 1977 my father and I were on our own. My mother and sisters had decamped for Southern Oregon. For whatever reason, my father decided I no longer needed to attend school, probably to save himself the daily weekday one-hour round trip to take me into town to the junior high school.

We lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains at the end of a long private road. My education the spring and summer of 1977 consisted of riding motorcycles on the back roads, trails, and, occasionally, the mountain arterial roads of Bear Creek and Summit.

Each day I would ride, usually with the dogs in tow. We occupied an old Jesuit novitiate. The monks still maintained -- they paid someone to -- a substantial vineyard. Most of the trails I traveled were access roads to the grape-bearing vines. During my time in the Santa Cruz Mountains I came across bobcat, black bear and coyote. I avoided, though they were around, wild boar and cougar.

One of the eeriest experiences I've had was on my bike, an able Honda SL70, riding a trail, following it deeper and deeper into the mountains. As the trail narrowed and the branches overhead blotted out the sky, I suddenly came into a small clearing surrounded on all sides by dense forest. There was no trail forward. I was far out into the bush, probably as far as I had ever been. And the sense I got was that I was being watched on all sides. By who or what, man or animal, I don't know. Of course it could have been a hysterical projection on my part. And if so it was a remarkable occurrence because I have never had a similar experience since. I remember the moment quite vividly. I turned the bike around and scooted back the way I came pronto.

In addition to my study of the mountain trails I took a self-administered course on Marvel Comics Werewolf by Night. By late spring 1977 I had accumulated almost all of the 43 issues. Marvel had recently cancelled the title. Beginning with the premiere, I read every single issue in sequence.

And while I read about Jack Russell's many battles as a Werewolf by Night, I listened to Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life (1976), so much so that whenever I hear "As" I always think of Werewolf by Night. They are one in the same in my mind.

And the connection, I think, is more than merely fanciful. Werewolf by Night debuts in the February 1972 issue of Marvel Spotlight (pictured above); it's cancelled in March 1977. This corresponds almost perfectly with Stevie Wonder's "classic period" which begins with his Music of My Mind album (released March 1972) runs through Talking Book (October 1972), the superb Innervisions (1973), Fulfillingness' First Finale (1975), and draws to a close with what I think is a perfect recording, the double LP with bonus EP Songs in the Key of Life (late September 1976).

The Hippies loved Stevie Wonder. As a Hippie kid I felt myself to be a white nigger. Looked down upon by the dominant culture, considered disreputable, pushed to the margin, "Black Man" was one of my favorite songs. I know all the words to this day.

The end of Stevie Wonder's classic period and the cancellation of Werewolf by Night serve as markers to the passing of Hippie Freak culture from the American mainstream. The celebration of man's shaggy doggedness -- his freaky and funky soul "Looking back on when I was a little nappy headed boy" -- is gone. The year is 1977.