89 Essential Songs from The Summer of Love: A 50th Anniversary Playlist

Image by Bryan Costales, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

The Sum­mer of Love was not just a sea­son of great music and the zenith of the flower child, but the cul­mi­na­tion of a move­ment that start­ed back on a chill­i­er Bay Area day, on Jan­u­ary 14, 1967. That was the month of the Human Be-In, and what must have looked like a full on inva­sion of the coun­ter­cul­ture into Gold­en Gate Park. The back­drop of this out­pour­ing of good vibra­tions was any­thing but lov­ing: Viet­nam, inner city riots, Civ­il Rights, and a huge gen­er­a­tion gap. The crowd size was esti­mat­ed at 100,000, and every­body there sud­den­ly real­ized they weren’t alone. They were a force.

Joel Selvin, inter­viewed by Michael Kras­ny for this KQED seg­ment on the Sum­mer of Love (lis­ten here), says that the real Sum­mer of Love for San Fran­cis­cans at least, hap­pened in 1966, when it was a local secret. One year lat­er, the hip­pie move­ment had become main­stream. And that’s when every band on both sides of the Atlantic had turned on to the zeit­geist, and the gates of psy­che­del­ic music opened up.

Today, we have a playlist of 89 songs to com­mem­o­rate the 50th anniver­sary of that his­toric sum­mer. (Down­load Spo­ti­fy’s free soft­ware here, if you need it.) If you are com­ing to this as a music fan, but not some­body who lived through that era, you might think you know all the songs from that peri­od, hav­ing had them ham­mered into your brain over the years from the ubiq­ui­tous hits of clas­sic rock radio, and nos­tal­gic movies.

There are of course the stone cold clas­sics from 1967, with not one but two Bea­t­les releas­es, includ­ing the icon­ic Sgt. Pep­per album; the best two songs from Jef­fer­son Air­plane; Pro­col Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale”; the Who’s best psy­che­del­ic song “I Can See for Miles”; Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Expe­ri­enced?” and “Hey Joe”; the Rolling Stones’ move into cham­ber pop with “Ruby Tues­day” and their own trip­py “She’s a Rain­bow” and “We Love You”—the last time they ever felt lovey dovey about any­thing; and the first releas­es by the Doors.

Soul and R’n’B was also at the height of its mid-60s pow­er, with Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” James Brown’s “Cold Sweat,” Mar­vin Gaye and Tam­mi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Moun­tain High Enough”, and Sam and Dave’s “Soul Man” infect­ing the charts.

“We were rid­ing the crest of a high and beau­ti­ful wave,” is how Hunter S. Thomp­son famous­ly put it in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and this playlist might just con­vince you of that con­sid­er­ing how music seemed to frac­ture so soon after—even the Bea­t­les would be deliv­er­ing that strange and some­times fright­en­ing trip of a White Album a year lat­er. Viet­nam would con­tin­ue to drag on, and the decade’s metaphor­i­cal end at Alta­mont was loom­ing on the hori­zon, not that many could see it. (By the way, Joel Selvin just wrote a very good book on that dark, decade-end­ing con­cert.)

Enjoy the playlist and argue over what’s miss­ing in the com­ments. (No “Water­loo Sun­set”? “I Sec­ond That Emo­tion”? “Glo­ria”? Hmmph!)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Rare Footage of the “Human Be-In,” the Land­mark Counter-Cul­ture Event Held in Gold­en Gate Park, 1967

Jimi Hen­drix Opens for The Mon­kees on a 1967 Tour; Then After 8 Shows, Flips Off the Crowd and Quits

Paul McCart­ney Admits to Drop­ping Acid in a Scrap­py Inter­view with a Pry­ing Reporter (June, 1967)

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.


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Comments (26)
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  • Greg munford says:

    What a great time it was, what a great week­end in Mon­terey. Proud to be a small part of it.: Singer of #15.

  • Greg Munford says:

    What a great tie it was, what a great week­end in Mon­terey. Proud to be a small part of it.
    Singer of #15

  • Steve says:

    You missed Bob Dylan! How could you?

  • ruari says:

    The Move I can hear the grass grow
    Pink Floyd See Emi­ly Play
    The Kinks Water­loo Sun­set
    Traf­fic Hole in my shoe
    The Small Faces Itchy­coo Park

  • Henry says:

    Hey bud­dy take the vel­vet under­ground off this Lou reed and com­pa­ny want­ed noth­ing to do with hip­pie shenani­gans and hat­ed most of the bands on this list

  • Stephen says:

    As far as the Beatles…Sgt Pep­per album was released dur­ing the Sum­mer of Love. Mag­i­cal Mys­tery Tour album was­n’t released until Novem­ber 1967.

  • Gill says:

    Is it me or does San Fran­cis­co (Be Sure to Wear Flow­ers in Your Hair) appear twice?

  • Gill says:

    Gimme Some Lovin’ shows up twice as well.

  • Zorro Astriasm says:

    Sort of missed all the great Bay Area Groups — San­tana, Moby Grape, Quick­sil­ver, Big Broth­er, The Dead, The Sons.… Damn! And about 20 great garage bands from the east bay and Marin Co. Shame on you!

  • Anne says:

    You’ve got the wrong ver­sion of “Ever­last­ing Love” in the playlist. You want Robert Knight. Carl­ton’s ver­sion is from 1974.

  • Brian says:

    No Stooges?! Pfft.

  • John says:

    Reed,Warhol and oth­ers in that scene were not part of the psy­che­del­ic break­through that was hap­pen­ing. They were junkies.

  • john says:

    Unfor­giv­able!

  • john says:

    And Coun­try Joe and the Fish.

  • john says:

    No Coun­try Joe and the Fish? Unfor­giv­able!

  • mike says:

    if you can remem­ber it, you prob­a­bly weren’t there. how­ev­er, there is one glar­ing omis­sion: the young­bloods, get togeth­er.

  • Karen says:

    What’s miss­ing is the Mon­kees “For Pete’s Sake” from their album Head­quar­ters. Unfor­tu­nate­ly it was­n’t released as a sin­gle (should have been) so not as well known. But noth­ing could be more Sum­mer of Love than its lyrics.

    Love is under­stand­ing
    Don’t you know that this is true?
    Love is under­stand­ing
    It’s in every­thing we do
    In this gen­er­a­tion (in this gen­er­a­tion)
    In this lovin’ time (in this lovin’ time)
    In this gen­er­a­tion (in this gen­er­a­tion)
    We will make the world shine
    We were born to love one anoth­er
    This is some­thing we all need
    We were born to love one anoth­er
    We must be what we’re goin’ to be
    And what we have to be is free
    In this gen­er­a­tion
    In this lovin’ time
    In this gen­er­a­tion
    We will make the world shine
    We were born to love one anoth­er
    This is some­thing we all need
    We were born to love one anoth­er
    We must be what we’re goin’ to be
    And what we have to be is free
    Love is under­stand­ing, we got­ta be free (in this gen­er­a­tion)
    Love is under­stand­ing, we got­ta be free (in this gen­er­a­tion)
    In this gen­er­a­tion
    Love is under­stand­ing, we got­ta be free (in this gen­er­a­tion)
    We got­ta be free (in this gen­er­a­tion)
    We got­ta be free (in this gen­er­a­tion)
    We got­ta be free (in this gen­er­a­tion)

  • Karen says:

    I just learned the inter­est­ing his­to­ry of that song! You not being with SAC at the time you record­ed the vocals, Ed King being involved, you being 16, etc. How cool that must’ve all seemed at the time :)

  • john says:

    MMT album was a col­lec­tion of sin­gles released ear­li­er in the year and the MMT EP which appar­ent­ly was put on an album instead in the US

  • Dan says:

    This list cer­tain­ly takes some lib­er­ties with the time frame. I expect­ed to see songs that were out dur­ing the Sum­mer of Love. While the major­i­ty are cor­rect, this list has a num­ber of songs from 1965, 1966, 1968 — it’s all over the place.

  • Pier Paolo says:

    No Beach Boys,no Good Vibrations,Heroes And Villains,etc et all the Beach Boys psy­che­del­ic era classics,including Smi­ley Sim­i­le?!

  • S. Marsh says:

    Sor­ry. Like Dan said the list is not just 1969
    songs and since A Day in the Life isn’t
    Ranked no. 1 the ranker does­n’t real­ly
    know good music.

  • S. Marsh says:

    1967 I meant.

  • Curt Piper says:

    The quin­tes­sen­tial “Sum­mer of Love” song, “White Bird,” by It’s A Beau­ti­ful Day

  • Bobby Davis says:

    Why Is Scott McKen­zie “San Fran­cis­co” list­ed twice?

  • Peggie says:

    Why is Frank Sina­tra on there at all?

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