I don't think you can really pin a 'hippie' label on his work, even in the seventies. Hippie music then, and now, doesn't really explore anything in any real depth, does it? It's mostly 'feel good' stuff, very surface level.
The hippies are a pretty lame lot. I don't begrudge them, really (they're pretty harmless) but politically and artistically they've devolved. They really don't confront anything... they are into escape.
Stevens during the seventies was more incisive and explorative of the human condition than most.
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