101. All About Eve - Flowers In Our Hair (Eden)

One week at number one on 1st August 1987It sometimes feels as if people were mourning the death of the hippy dream within five minutes of the whole thing starting. I’m exaggerating for effect, obviously, but the nostalgia and regret seem to start fairly sharply. Thunderclap Newman’s 1969 number one “Something In The Air” drips with desperation – the line “We have got to get it together” sounding more panicked than optimistic, urging somebody somewhere not to just do something, but attempt it in an organised, unified way. More bizarrely still, the obscure track “Imagine”*, recorded by Elton John, Rodger Hodgson (of eventual Supertramp fame) and friends in the same year seems to be fondly looking back at an era which had only just passed. “You'll find that the flowers won't wait/ they will disintegrate” warns Hodgson; and by 1969 they had, broadly speaking. Both songs feel as if they’re taking place at a wake, or at least on the last bank holiday of August when a faint chill can be…