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As young as I feel and as old I appear, I can quite clearly remember when I was about nine years old; I wanted my hair to look like Ringo Star's, but my parent's wouldn't let me!

In the 1960's, long hair for guys, was in and it seemed to stayed for a long time.

In the early 1970's, I was eventually granted my rebellion, I guess that comes out of becoming a teenager? And I grew my hair very long! I am male and long hair was considered, back then, to be very anti establishment! Especially growing up in a quiet English town. Not many people in my high school had long hair, except for the girls!

My hair became longer and the music that I listened to, became less understood by my peers. Which was good!

Long hair, for men, was shocking! If you had long hair, you were labeled a hippie'. Hippies were everywhere! They were loving and making piece all over the place and the establishment did not know what to do about it! Well, it was just a phase! Eventually, all the people with long hair got their hair cut and all the people with short hair, simply grew their hair longer! I thought this was very funny!

There were several styles of hair in the 1970's, as I remember; One could groove to the sounds of Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple, with long, unkempt hair, or one could listen to the Bee Gees, with nice clean, long hair and perhaps a trimmed beard?! Or, a dose of the Rolling Stones, with short hair or long hair, it didn't matter!

The mid 1970's, brought about a big change; David Bowie, the Chameleon of popular and progressive music, changed his hair with every album he put out! Not only was his work respected, and still is, but his forever, evolving style, set the pace and raised the bar of hair styles, for many years: Long hair, short hair, colored hair and many types of hair styles that I cannot even describe! This gentleman, was a total art unto himself. He was a beacon for style and popular culture!

Eventually, the seventies took on other hair styles! Again, rebelling against a system so mean! Punk rock made it's debut and if you didn't know what hair' shock' was all about, then, this culture really put hair shock' on the map! Spiky hair! Hair that looked very ugly! You could do anything with your hair imaginable, it didn't matter! The whole art and pop movement, had been brought to a head, so to speak! It was time to let it down, shave it all off, or take it up and do what ever the heck, you could do with it, if you dared!

I remember working with a young lady who used a can of hair spray every morning, just to keep her hair sticking up in the air, about a foot, as I recall; And that was in the early eighties! Well, the eighties came and the long hair and the spiky hair merged; Just as David Bowie had been predicting; Perhaps it was something subliminal? However, there were other pop icons that were ahead of their time and they all, made an impact on the fashion scene.

As the 1980's progressed, everyone had really big, clean hair all of a sudden! The hair was short in the front and very long at the back. Women sported huge hair that was big and high in the front and long and wavy at the back, and just to make it worse, they wore enormous ribbons. Remember the Thompson Twins?

Learn more about this author, Jon Coe.
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