eden ahbez[1] (born George Alexander Aberle in Brooklyn, New York on April 15, 1908; died March 4, 1995) was an American songwriter and recording artist from the 1940s-1960s, whose lifestyle in California was influential on the hippie movement.
Ahbez composed the song "Nature Boy", which became a #1 hit for eight weeks in 1948 for Nat "King" Cole, and has since become a pop and jazz standard.
Living a bucolic life from at least the 1940s, he traveled in sandals and wore shoulder-length hair and beard, and white robes. He camped out below the first L in the Hollywood Sign above Los Angeles, studied Oriental mysticism, and claimed to live on three dollars a week, sleeping outdoors with his family, and eating vegetables, fruits, and nuts. "Nature Boy" is a song by eden ahbez, published in 1947. The song tells a fantasy of a "strange enchanted boy... who wandered very far" only to learn that "the greatest thing... was just to love and be loved in return". Nat Cole's 1948 recording of the song was a major hit, and "Nature Boy" has since become a pop and jazz standard, with dozens of major artists interpreting the song.
The melody of "Nature Boy" can be.