one for rob sheffield

Posted on August 12th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Songs, Words, Lyrics.

Is the Dovells' 1963 top ten hit "You Can't Sit Down" the earliest hit single to use the word "hippy" as a noun referring to a person?

When you're on South Street,
(You can't sit down.)
And the band is really bootin',
(You can't sit down.)
You hear the hippy with the back beat,
(You can't sit down.)
And you see the gang a-groovin',
(You can't sit down.)
Gotta get your bottom movin',
(You can't sit down.)
You gotta make it, break it,
Shake it all around.

4 comments.

tdanaher

Comment on August 12th, 2008.

Is your question confined to the use in hit singles, or in media in general?

(Found a reference in an Earl Wilson column from 1962 about how "Joan Crawford was explaining how she keeps slim-hipped to a bunch of hippies at a 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane' party at 21.")

Scraps

Comment on August 12th, 2008.

I'm interested in both, actually, but I'm intently interested in first use in a hit single.

D.

Comment on August 14th, 2008.

Well, there's also "South Street" ("Where do all the hippies meet?/South Street, South Street") but this far away, those two songs look contemporaneous.

Scraps

Comment on August 14th, 2008.

Thanks! It was pretty much contemporary -- they're both 1963 -- though "South Street" wasn't a hit. Here's the best part, though: According to Wikipedia, "A high school friend, Dovells lead singer Len Barry, encouraged them to audition for Cameo-Parkway Records at the turn of the decade." So maybe the word was floating around their high school.

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