Today’s classic song of the day is one that drew thousands of young people to a particular city in the summer of 1967. We’re talking “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” by Scott McKenzie. Released in May of 1967, just in time to herald the so-called Summer of Love, “San Francisco” peaked at #4 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100. It hit number one in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and the UK.
“San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” was written by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, who also played guitar on the recording. Other musicians on this track included Wrecking Crew members Joe Osborn on bass and Hal Blaine on drums, as well as McKenzie himself on another acoustic guitar. Phillips said it only took him about 20 minutes to write the song; no doubt it took longer to record it.
The song became the unofficial anthem of that year’s Monterey International Pop Festival, held just down the highway from San Francisco. Phillips supposedly wrote it to placate local authorities who weren’t all that hot about a bunch of hippies descending on their city—which they’d been doing since 1965 and would continue to do for the next several years.
Scott McKenzie and John Phillips were old friends. They first sang together in a doo-wop group group called the Abstracts (later the Smoothies), then got involved in the incipient folk music revival of the early ’60s. Along with Dick Weissman, McKenzie and Phillips formed the Journeymen, recording several albums and scoring a moderate hit single with the song “River Come Down.” The Journeymen disbanded in 1964 and the trio went their separate ways, Phillips to form the Mamas and the Papas, Weissman to become a producer and studio musician, and McKenzie to pursue a solo career.
“San Francisco” resonates with me because of a trip to Europe undertaken by our high school marching band in the summer of 1974. We traveled through a half-dozen countries in a pair of double-decker buses, and the driver of one bus had a single tape (cassette or 8-track, I can’t remember) that he played over and over as we drove from location to location. On that tape was “San Francisco,” by then an “oldie,” which we got to hear about a hundred times over a two-week period. I don’t remember much about that trip fifty years ago, but I do remember this song—and not always fondly. (You try listening to any song that many times and tell me how you feel about it…)
Scott McKenzie had another minor hit with the single “Like an Old Time Movie” (also written by John Phillips), wrote the song “What About Me” for Anne Murray, and in the mid-80s briefly sang with a reformed version of the Mamas and the Papas. He also co-wrote the song “Kokomo” (along with Terry Melcher, Mike Love, and John Phillips) for the Beach Boys. He retired from the music scene in 1998 and passed away in 2012, aged 73.
Just remember—if you come to San Francisco, summertime will be a love-in there.
