"Old Hippie" is a song written by David Bellamy, and recorded by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

duo

The Bellamy Brothers The Bellamy Brothers are an American pop and country music duo from Darby, Florida. The duo consists of brothers David Milton Bellamy (born September 16, 1950) and Homer Howard Bellamy (born February 2, 1946). The duo had considerable musical s ...

. It was released in April 1985 as the first single from their album '' Howard & David''. The song reached No. 2 on the ''

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Hot Country Singles Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data along with digital sales and streaming. ...

chart in July 1985 and No. 1 on the ''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or r⋅min−1) is a unit of rotational speed (or rotational frequency) for rotating machines. One revolution per minute is equivalent to hertz. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 def ...

'' Country Tracks chart in Canada. In June 2014, ''

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'' magazine ranked "Old Hippie" 95th in their list of the 100 greatest country songs.

Content

The song is about the unnamed title character, an aging hippie who uses

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, listens to the

Woodstock The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. Billed as "a ...

-influenced rock music of the late 1960s, mourns the

Murder of John Lennon On the evening of 8 December 1980, the English musician John Lennon, formerly of the Beatles, was shot and fatally wounded in the archway of the Dakota, his residence in New York City. The killer, Mark David Chapman, was an American Beatles fa ...

in 1980, and for years refuses to let go of his lifestyle, despite societal changes around him. It is also explained that he was drafted to

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

and forced to "become a man while he was still a boy." Afterward, he began waiting for something good to happen in his life, before adopting his lifestyle. Eventually, the man does change, taking up such interests as jogging while staying away from parties and nightclubs.

Sequels

A decade after the song's release, the brothers recorded a sequel song titled "Old Hippie (The Sequel)". The song follows the same unnamed title character 10 years after the original. Just as with "Old Hippie," the sequel sees the man—now with a thinning hairline—continuing to struggle with his memories of Vietnam and changes in society, only with updated references.The Bellamys re-visited the "Old Hippie" character on their 1996 holiday release, "Tropical Christmas." This release sees the hippie and his family celebrating the holiday with a mixture of mainstream and hippie traditions. While the current state of the world worries the character, he feels that the answers "start right here with him / So he'll visualize this sacred night a world that ain't out on a limb." In "Old Hippie 3 (Saved)", from the 2007 album ''Jesus Is Coming'', the man—now 55—has found Jesus. "''He still thinks about the crazy days but thanks his God above / that he traded in the love-ins for a greater kind of love.''"

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References