This stupid reason that Singapore banned Led Zeppelin for having long hair.
I want to thank one of my subscribers Cronkite for sending me this suggestion. In case you guys missed it i had previously talked about the time the City of Boston banned Led Zeppelin because of how their fans behaved when they lined up to get tickets at the band’s planned concert in the city. The link is down below. But today i want to talk about one specific country that banned Led Zeppelin all because of their hair.
4 years after the formation of Led Zeppelin they were one of the biggest bands in the world. By this point in time they had released 4 records, aptly titled Led Zeppelin 1 through 4. According to rock journalist Mick Wall’s book Led Zeppelin were so big that they and i quote “ were[s]elf-made millionaires so famous they now hid behind armed guards, employed their own drug dealers and flew by private jet.””
Despite, all their prestige there was one place in the world they couldn’t play and that was Singapore. While the band flew to singapore for a planned an outdoor concert in the country on Valentine’s day February 14, 1972 the authorities refused to let them get off the plane unles they cut their hair. The band declined and They were forced to fly back to London. While some people took issue with the band over their suggestive lyrics or rumors of satanic worship, the Singaporian authorities didn’t seem to either know about that or single them out for that. Instead they opposed the long hair sported by all members of the band.
The government of Singapore was carefully watching what was happening in other countries with revolutions being led by young people as well as a drugs influencing the countries youth.. The government of Singapore worried that if similar activities happened in their country it would be detrimental, so the government invested heavily in helping shape young people’s minds to serve their countries best interest and felt that long hair was a corrupting influence of western culture. According to Mary C Turnbull’s book titled a history of singapore 1819-1998 the government spent a fortune on education as they saw this as the best means to limit any inkling of revolutionary behavior. The book would claim the country spent a whopping 33% of their national budget on education. The hair ban started in the 60’s.
It wasn’t just Led Zeppelin who found themselves turned away from the country as one month prior a wealthy australian tourist told a newspaper from his home country of being told he had two days to get a haircut or leave the country upon his arrival in Singapore. Of course other acts during hte 70’s including the bee gees and Japanese artists.
In 1974 Singapore undertook a campaign called operation snip snip which would attempt to stamp out any people with excessively long hair (for example below the collar or hair covering the ears.) any civil servants who refused to clean up their hair would be fired. For those who had business dealings with the government would frequently see posters in offices that read “males with long hair will have their need attended to last””
Of course things got a little more liberal in Singapore in the 80’s with rock bands now frequently playing the City state regardless of their hair length. Even Robert Plant would play the country in 2013. f
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