I doubt there is anyone reading this who has not heard of the musical Hair. I won’t go into Hair all that much except to say that it was revolutionary for its time. Billed as “The Tribal Love-Rock Musical,” it was different from anything that had been seen on Broadway up until then. The musical opened in 1967 and despite the controversy, was almost an instant hit. It’s themes included illegal drugs, sexuality, irreverence of the American flag and most important, open nudity on stage. This was, I believe, the first time there was full frontal nudity of both women and men on a Broadway stage.

The music was written by Gerome Ragni and James Rado. and among the songs in the musical were two song, “The Age of Aquarius” and “The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In).” The group The 5th Dimension took the two songs and made a medley from there which earned them their first number one song.

The 5th Dimension were organized in 1965 and started out known as The Versatiles, but in 1966, changed their name to the 5th Dimension. The original five members of the group were Billy Davis Jr., Florence LaRue, Marilyn McCoo, Lamonte McLemore and Ronald Townson. The sound of the group has been defined as “champagne soul.” The group started charting on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967 and had seven Top 40 hits before this Hair medley. Two of those hits were Top 10, “Up-Up and Away” (#7) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (#3). Then in 1969, they reached the top with “Aquarius”/”Let the Sunshine In.”

The story of how they came to record the songs in the first place is an interesting one. Billy Davis had accidentally left his wallet in a New York cab as he was travelling from one place to another. The next person to ride in the cab was a man who was involved in the production of Hair and, so he called Billy and told him he had his wallet. Billy invited him to a 5th Dimension concert in the city and in return the guy invited Billy to a showing of Hair. Billy came and saw the play and was blown away. He told Bones Howe, his producer, that the group should record the song “The Age of Aquarius” but the writers said that song was not a complete song, it was more of an introduction to the other songs in the play. So, they added “Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)” and they had a complete recording. It’s important to note that the name of the song which includes the words “Let the Sunshine In” is “The Flesh Failures” and the subtitle of the song is “Let the Sunshine In,” not the other way around as would be implied by the title of the 5th Dimension song. The song was recorded in two cities, Las Vegas and New York and the two were mixed into what we hear today.

“Aquarius”/”Let the Sunshine In” entered the pop charts on March 15, 1969 and spent six weeks at number one, making it the second most popular song of 1969, coming in behind “Sugar, Sugar” which we will get to later in the year. Billboard has listed this song as number 66 on their list of the “Greatest Songs of All Time.”