new thread
The Beatles performing "She Loves You" live in 1963.
that looks pretty short for "long hair", but maybe most guys had buzzcuts back then. I dunno. I wasn't around then.
it was considerd on the long side as flat top haircuts were the
most common in 1963 but there were a few guys who did have
Elvis style hair cuts but most had flat tops or
millitary style hair cuts back then.
it was about 1965-1966 before I started seeing longer hair on guys but it was about 1968 before I rember seeing what you could
really call long hair on guys around here in central Wisconsin
Yes indeed in 1963 this was longhair. Crew cuts are what I was indoctrinated into as a kid. Check these guys(The Beatles)out in 1969 to see real longhair! btw The Beatles did'nt really become serious musical artists until 1966. Just my own interpretation!
peace, jonalbear
*
Hello,
Here is a Youtube clip of an interview with David Bowie in 1964, when he was 17, his hair is nearly shoulder-length, and the video is bad and blurry as it was typical for the time.
In the clip, he says he was harassed since two years, over his long hair.
Enjoy,
Happy hollidays,
Georges
David Bowie Interview
And I thought I met some stupid people in my life!
I suppose when a woman gets her hair cut short some idiot will probably ask her if she's trying to be a man.
society is made up of really dumb sheep.
In 1965 at high school my brother tried doing a "Beatle" haircut roughly equivalent to the longest one in that clip and was seriously harrassed bigtime by the principal. He would look out for and avoid the principal throughout the day. No one else said much about it though. He and his buddies had a garage band of the day. Nowadays he's a pro musician in Reno NV with moderate hair length roughly to the collar, so he knew what he wanted way back then.
So yes, even in SF Bay Area CA, the "longest" hair in that clip was seemingly radical.
In 1969 I took a car trip with some of my UC Berkeley friends, and as soon as we left the Bay Area, the trouble began. We were stared at a lot, and in one instance in Dunsmuir, CA, there was outright redneck hostility at a little store. When we got to Canada and roamed around, no one there paid any attention to us at all. It was interesting how southern BC seemed more progressive than here.
...thanks for the flashback ! HA!
I remember the "old folks" lamenting about the demise of the younger generation with rock music that was "demonic"
and "OOoo gawd, look at that HAIR!"
HA! They should see today's hair, piercings and Tats,l HUH!??
WWT
Too bad he cut off his hair and became a Yuppie :-(
Jerry Rubin on Phil Donahue
Even THIS was considered long hair in 1963. (Used with permission from the Justin archives of Justin by Justin.)Colourized by Justin. Photographed by Matthew Brady. LOL :-)
was this taken back in the 1960s?
Yes.........and it was taken "after" a sizable haircut so as to make my hair "short" again.
Yes that was long for the time. I started growing my hair
long when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show and
started growing their hair. By the time the 70s rolled around
it was waist lengh, the Beatles had broken up, and I had gotten
into lots of trouble in school for having long hair.
I do not understand why someone would get into trouble for having long hair.
Does a female get into trouble for having long hair? short hair? no. absolutely not!
Yes, it was, and no, no-one had buzzcuts. Not in England, anyway, as buzzcuts were strictly an American thing until the 1990s, with the exception of skinheads, who were soccer hooligans/racists who beat up Pakistani immigrants.
The Beatles' fringes (bangs in Americanese) were considered long hair even without the length at the back. DA (Duck's A***) haircuts worn by rock'n'rollers at the time were also considered to be long by many people, and were a similar length at the back, i.e. they spilled over the collar, which people back then thought was long. The Beatles just combed their hair forwards instead of back. There is another thread here specifically about the Beatles' haircuts.
The typical respectable UK style at the time was "short back and sides", where long hair on top of the head was acceptable, but not over the eyes or over the collar. Buzzcuts, OTOH, were NOT acceptable, as they were still associated with the Victorian practice of shaving your head in prison, which is probably why the skinheads chose them, specifically to frighten people. US cultural assumptions won't work here, or even 21st century assumptions.
US cultural assumptions won't work here, or even 21st century assumptions.
maybe I should relocate to your country. there seems to be a proliferation of closely cropped guys in the states especially where I reside and if you have long hair you often might receive dirty looks. some guys around here think if you have more than an inch of hair(not kidding!) that you need a haircut.
a older friend of mine who remembers the sixties well said that a sign that a country is headed towards fascism is when extremely short such as militaristic type hairstyles become very popular and influence the mainstream cultures tastes.
now , this is his opinion not mine, but he could be on to something since he is a great deal older than me and much wiser.
I believe he is entirely right. However, if you will look again at my post you will see that cropped hair did become more mainstream in the UK in the 90s, when it came in as a fashion statement. OTOH, I moved to the states in the 80s!
The period we were talking about was the early 60s, which even precedes skinheads. At that time in the UK a crewcut, unless accompanied by an American accent, would have had mostly criminal associations.
I wish I could say that this means that long hair is or was more accepted in the UK. In fact, all it really means is that the association between crewcuts and respectability (the whole 'clean cut image' thing) that seems to be well established in the US has simply never existed in the UK, and that such styles have some negative associations instead.
In other words, both cropped hair and long hair have some negative baggage in the UK. If cropped hair has associations with jail, racism and violence, long hair still has the same associations with drugs and hippies that it does in the US, however you view such things.
Of course, if cropped hair was actually a fashion in the 90s, this does mean that people thought the negative view of it was outdated. OTOH, maybe people don't view longhairs as hippies as much as they once did either.