PLK: Adrian Would - Tree Huggn Hippie""

Whenever I go to places where I have performed this song in the past, I get shouts of .Hi there, tree hugn hippie!. This is great for supporting my delusions of fame and notoriety (thank you fans!), and hence I thought it would be nice to explain where the song came from, which is actually a very similar situation.

My partner Rachael and I jumped on a train and bus in summer of 2004 and headed down to the Mornington peninsula, for a nice stroll on the beach and a night at a local campground. In my usual style I became .geographically challenged. and we started to deviate from the intended course because .the map wasn.t telling the truth!.

As our search for a campsite continued, clothed in typically hippie garments and proudly displaying mops of disgustingly filthy dread locked hair, we strolled through a school campground, and as we walked we heard an almighty chorus, shouting in unison .TREE HUGN HIPPIES!. Upon turning our heads we saw about ten boys all trying to squeeze through one cabin doorway in an attempt to avoid detection, hands firmly pressed over mouths to keep the laughter in. .Yeah, good one, idiots!. I thought, and we kept walking. A few seconds later, once again came the chorus: .TREE HUGN HIPPIES!., and their rush to escape.

For me it was just another thing to add to the annoyance of being lost, but Rachael had a different perspective. .Let.s go and hug a tree!., she said. What a great idea - as the kids gathered in preparation for another go we walked up to a tree and hugged it. You should have heard the uproar - those boys were ecstatic that we had played the game. My next move - a humping action to the tree - was enough to get them rolling around on the ground in hysteria!

As we walked off to shouts of .Do it again! Do it again!., I felt a warmth inside that has lasted until this day. That night, as we arrived at the campsite (it was exactly where the map said it would be), I thought to myself: .Self, I think you should write a song about being a tree hugn hippie, not only to tell people that hippies aren.t all just pot smoking wanderers, but also to continue on the theme of this whole experience - turning a potentially negative experience into a positively affirming one, simply by altering your own impression of the situation..

And it has continued in this fashion. The song .Tree Hugn Hippie. has given me the opportunity to speak and perform to many university students in sociology and politics classes in Melbourne, and aroused enough interest to give me a spot on this web site, where the words continue to be spread worldwide. Hopefully one of those kids will read this story one day.

Peace and love to all!

Adrian