L.B.J. lyrics by Hair, 3 meanings. L.B.J. explained, official 2024 song lyrics | LyricsMode.com
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Hair – L.B.J. lyrics
Lbj took the irt
Down to 4th Street usa

When he got there
What did he see?
The youth of America on lsd

Lbj irt
Usa lsd

Lsd lbj
Fbi cia

Fbi cia
Lsd lbj
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L.B.J. meanings

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    In 1968 when Hair came out, Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) was president of the USA. The IRT was the inter borough transit authority, New York's subway system. 4th Street USA referred to a typical American neighborhood. LSD was a common hallucinogenic drug,

    The response back then was to criminalize the use of drugs, the FBI had an investigation going into it and the CIA thing was thrown into it because they were responsible for a lot of the Vietnam War.
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    Fourth Street, USA is not "a typical" anything, it was a hippie center in lower Manhattan. West 4th is a subway station on the IRT, which is not "the NYC subway system" but rather one of three "divisions" of it, once independent private companies. This is sung by a native NYer, because nobody else cares which division a station is on (the tunnels and hence the trains are mostly isolated in the three lines, there are limited inter-division transfer points)

    This is an important element of the song and indeed of the play/movie. Both hippies and their opponents thought they were global but they had a tendency to be intensively local and intensively part of the culture they sought to change.
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    The explanation above is not fully correct. The FBI was cracking down on civilian use of recreational drugs like marijuana and LSD. At the same time, the CIA was doing experiments with LSD for the purposes of warfare, and possible mind control on spies or the American public. In one case, the FBI reported that the CIA had ideas or plans to use the drug in the NYC subway system. The song points out both the conspiracy theory and the hypocrisy of punishing young people for using drugs while the government was also using the same drugs for nefarious reasons.
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      In 1968 when Hair came out, Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) was president of the USA. The IRT was the... Read more →
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      Fourth Street, USA is not "a typical" anything, it was a hippie center in lower Manhattan. West... Read more →

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