Baby Boomers: The Strangest Generation
A light look at growing up in the 60's and 70's, TV, music, family life, politics, drugs are just a few of the topics we cover. Whether you're a Boomer or not there was no other time like the Strangest Generation.
Baby Boomers: The Strangest Generation
Give me a head with hair: Long hair in the 70’s
Fast forward to a time when the man bun reigns and the pandemic has thrown the rulebook out the salon window, we reflect on how current hair trends echo the past's cultural clashes and signify more than mere fashion. My own journey from a hair skeptic to an observer of the pandemic's accidental hair liberation movement reveals a surprising truth: while hair may serve as a canvas of expression, it is but one thread in the tapestry of our identity. Tune in for a heartfelt dialogue on the evolution of male hairstyles, a nod to the icons who paved the way, and a celebration of the freedom to let our hair—whatever its length, style, or statement—truly be our own.
Hi, this is John Ward. This is Baby Boomers, the Strangest Generation, and I want to talk about hair, men's hair. Hair's always been important Hair length, hairstyle, hair growth but it seems to me like it was never more important than it was in the 60s and 70s, because that's when teens and boys and men began to grow their hair long period. Now, george Washington had long hair. He had a wig. Jesus apparently had long hair. He does. In every Easter movie I've ever seen, benjamin Franklin with headlong hair. And hair always seems to have been a flashpoint between fathers and sons period, between older generations and younger generations.
Speaker 1:Think about Michael Jordan. He was a huge star in the 1980s, probably the biggest star athlete you know still is. What did he do? He shaved his head. Prior to him, african American men's hair was afro, light afro, short afro, thick, big, full afro. In the 70s, michael Jordan shaved his head and then every other athlete with an afro, pretty much every other athlete shaved their head period.
Speaker 1:So what's happening? I got a theory. It's a pendulum, it's a give and take, it's a yin and yang. Every generation of sons is going to start the process of I don't know. Call it rebellion, call it breaking free, call it independence, but generations of men break free from their dads, from their dad's generation, with hairstyles. So Jordan shaves his head, everybody shaves his head, everybody shaves their head. And the next generation of athletes do what. They come out with friggin hair braided down to their shoulders. Why? I think it's rebellion. I think it's down to their shoulders. Why I think it's rebellion. I think it's their way of saying you're old, I'm young, I'm new, you're done.
Speaker 1:But in the 60s and 70s it had a lot more to do with revolution. It had a lot more to do with Dad. Your hair is short, slick back. You wear a tie and a suit and maybe you wear a blue collar or whatever, but your slick back hair ain't doing it for me, no more. I'm going to grow my hair, I'm going to separate you from me, I'm going to piss you off and I'm just going to get as far away from you socially as I possibly can, and I'm going to do that by looking as different from you as I possibly can. Here's not just a look, it's a statement.
Speaker 1:When I was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old in the mid 60's, at the end of school, when the summer came, I got a buzz cut. Every kid on the block got a buzz cut. Every kid's hair was taken down as short as it could be and it would grow out through the summer and then when you went back to school you'd start getting haircuts. We didn't really care at six, seven, but as we got a little older and we started seeing the images of Elvis, the Beatles, british rock stars as compared to Frank Sinatra, dean Martin, with the slick back here there started to become a little hair related separation, rebellion. Hair wasn't a fashion statement. Hair was a flag, a statement, a form of rebellion saying I am different from you, I am separating from you. I am growing my hair.
Speaker 1:Now, in my case, I couldn't grow my hair. My father would not allow it in any way, shape or form. I get a haircut all the time. But hippies, just kids on the block, anybody my age group was trying their hardest to get long hair because it made you cool, it made you different, it made you different from your dad and his generation. My dad's generation, the greatest generation, ran to war, ran to Europe, ran to Normandy, ran to Korea to fight.
Speaker 1:When I was eight years old, the kids of draft age in my area I was too young they weren't really running to Vietnam. There was a draft so they had to go. I remember I asked my dad one day he went to Korea for fun Korea. And I said to him when I was older, dad, why did you sign up to go to Korea? And he said to me the day I heard about what was happening in Korea, me and my friends couldn't get to the draft office quick enough. We signed up, we wanted to go fight that war, we wanted to free those people Period. And they came back home and they put drill cream in their hair, cut it close, slicked it back. And that's not even talking about like the 50s, where the greasers and the DAs that was called the duck ass haircut. You see it in old 50s movies like American Graffiti and the Lords of Flatbush Fonzie Remember Fonzie with the slick back hair.
Speaker 1:But when rock and roll hit, world War II was over, career was over. There was a lapse of maybe 10, 12 years before we got into another friggin' conflict that we might not have needed to be into. There were fathers like mine who had come home from these horrible, terrible wars and seen all this shit and had did all this shit and had shit done to them and opened up concentration camps, just came back to America and said, look, I'm in. I just want to forget this shit. I want to have babies. I want to move out of the city, get this little pink house with a white picket fence, with a wife I can depend on and a job I can get a pension from work 30 years at conform put security, stability and looked the part, and they gave birth to the baby boomers. They wanted to look successful. They wanted to wear suits ties. They wanted to wear suits ties. They wanted to conform.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you, I always thought a tie was like a noose around my neck. When I worked for a big company, I went corporate for about 10 years of my life. I had to put a suit and tie on every day and I just thought that tie was like a noose around my neck. That said, I hereby agree to conform to you by proxy, as symbolized by this noose around my neck, and I hated it. And I hated that I had to have, in order to succeed in that corporate world, that I had to have a haircut. I had to have my hair a certain friggin way or I wasn't gonna make it in it.
Speaker 1:In all honesty, I didn't care what I looked like. I wasn't fashionable, I wasn't into my hair, I wasn't into what I wore. I just knew I didn't want to look like my dad. He wore Occasionally when he was going out on social events. He was a steel worker, so he didn't really dress on a day-to-day basis as if he was a corporate executive. But if he went to a wedding or a party or he had one of those 70s house parties, he would wear a suit, suit, turtleneck, tie, you know shoes, and I was wearing a T-shirt, a raggedy T-shirt, raggedy jeans, partly because we really didn't have the money to dress me that good, but also because, if we did, I wouldn't have dressed like that. It just wasn't going to happen because I wasn't part of that generation. I was watching the Beatles, I was watching the who, I was watching CSN Crosby, sill Nash, young and they were growing their hair and they were growing it to make a statement. And, god darn, I wanted to make the same statement but my dad would not let me.
Speaker 1:In the 70s, as a teenager, as a teenager, hair defined where you stood in terms of your social relevance in school. If you had long hair, you were exotic. You were tough, you were a druggie, you were someone to be reckoned with. If you had short hair you were a jack, a smart kid or just a regular friggin' kid. But if you had long hair, god damn man, you could be in.
Speaker 1:I couldn't really grow my hair that long. I mean it was long, but according to today's standards it was long. But my dad just was not going to allow it because he thought it was going to hinder my ability to succeed. He didn't want me working in a plant, he wanted me to go to school, he wanted me to get a corporate job and it was just not going to happen. But he would just not allow it because it had so many social stigmas attached to it. Long hair meant drugs. Long hair meant you didn't like in America. Long hair meant you were subversive, you were uncontrollable. And to me, if I could just grow my hair I could maybe get more chicks, I could maybe look a little edgy, I could just be in with the in crowd. But it wasn't going to happen. There were songs about it Almost cut my hair. There's a whole friggin' Broadway musical album called Hair Give me a head with hair. Long, beautiful hair.
Speaker 1:Hairstyles weren't just hairstyles. They were political statements revolting against the previous generation. Nothing different from the dreadlocks that current athletes wear, separating themselves from the bald head of the Jordan era. There finally came a day I could grow my hair. I was older, didn't live at home, had this freedom, man, I could grow my hair, a beard, I can do whatever I want with my frigging hair, and I didn't, because the meeting had left. The rage was over.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to make a living and I pretty much know if I walk into a place to try and get a job and I get long hair, I'm not gonna get the job. I know if I'm driving my car down the street and I get pulled over and I got long hair, I'm probably going to take some shit from the cops. Plus, I really didn't look good in a long hair the few times I tried it. So then, what happened After me? After us?
Speaker 1:The hair of the 80s became like really stylish really. You know pompadours and loose gel and crazy stuff, as opposed to you know, like Bob Seger and his great song, walking into the disco with the long hair, and it became really stylized. And to guys like us, if you put too much time into your hair. There was another thing. It meant that you paid too much attention to yourself and it meant that any guy that paid too much attention to how he looked, other than Italian mobsters, might be gay. So kids went back to you know, say I'm like 35, 40. Kids go back to the short hair. Now say I'm like 35, 40. Kids go back to the short hair, my father's generation hair. They're slicking it back, they're getting it super cut. You know, now I'm trying to play the game. I'm trying to compete. I'm 34. I'm competing with these young kids. I'm in corporate America.
Speaker 1:I started getting my hair cut short, short, short. Then the freaking facial hair hit right. In the 70s you could have a mustache. You know every athlete, every, you know Tom Selleck, burt Reynolds, you know kind of longish hair mustache. Now the mustache period went. Now you could have full beards and it's about 15 years ago. Every guy went full beard. Look at Conor McGregor, look at, you know, guys with these long, long beards. The hair got shorter but the facial hair got longer. I'm not sure what that was all about. It was just like a fashion fad. But I don't think it had the same kind of meaning that long hair had in the 60s and 70s.
Speaker 1:Now I see young guys are growing their hair long. I see them on TV, in TV shows, I see them in magazines and movies and their hair is getting longer and they do this thing with this ponytail on top of their head. And I want to say, man, you're kind of looking like a girl. Why are you doing that shit? It don't look right to me. But then I correct myself and I say, when I was growing my hair long, my dad really wasn't saying you look feminine, he was saying cut your friggin hair so you can get a job and conform. These guys with their ponytails on top of their heads and I'm like, I don't like it. Then I check myself and I say it's just freaking hair, that's all, it's just hair, it's nothing.
Speaker 1:Then the hipster generation hit with hair and beards and hair and perfect hair and this and perfect hair and they're this and you know. And in the end COVID hit and I couldn't get a haircut and my hair grew long and I looked in the mirror and I said I kind of look like shit. I want to clean my hair up. And finally I got a haircut, felt better, looked better and, as I was getting that haircut, looking in the mirror and the barber was shining the mirror around the back of my head and I was getting that haircut. Looking in the mirror and the barber was shining the mirror around the back of my head and I was.
Speaker 1:I had a brief whiff of the memory of me wanting my hair to be long in 76. So bad. And saying to myself'm right here, right now, I really don't give a shit if my hair is long, short, midline dyed, bald, shaved, I don't care, it doesn't really mean anything. I don't care, it doesn't really mean anything. So that's it, the history of hair in the 70s and 60s. I hope you liked it.