Scott McKenzie, San Francisco - A Classical Musician’s First Listen and Reaction
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.ย. 2024
- #virginrock #scottmckenzie #sanfrancisco
Believe it or not, I found this song on one of the walls of my house!
Here’s the link to the original song:
• San Francisco - Scott ...
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Amy Shafer, LRSM, FRSM, RYC, is a classical harpist, pianist, and music teacher, Director of Piano Studies and Assistant Director of Harp Studies for The Harp School, Inc., holds multiple degrees in harp and piano performance and teaching, and is active as a solo and collaborative performer. With nearly two decades of teaching experience, she teaches privately, presents masterclasses and coaching sessions, and has performed and taught in Europe and USA.
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Credits: Music written and performed by Scott McKenzie
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This song is a timeless masterpiece about a specific time and place. It's timeless not only because of its beauty, but also because it reminds us of a lost sentiment.
I believe that the song was specifically referencing the atmosphere of Haight Ashbury, the hippie mecca during the "Summer Of Love" in 1967.
So I don't believe that the song is trying to capture the entirety of San Francisco, even back then. Because SF always had a Business/Banking district, the hustle bustle of rush hour, filled with cars and crowds of people using mass transportation to get to their 9-5 jobs, etc., etc.
But where the flower children gathered en masse, it was a very different world, a completely different vibe.
It has a sweet innocence about it. It catures the best of the era perfectly.
San Francisco is still a great place, regardless of what the propaganda says. Timeless song.
i was 6 years old in 1967,and had three teenage siblings. so although i wasn't personally involved in the counter culture movement, it was all around me. the clothes people wore,the vehicles they drove (like the VW microbus arlo guthrie sang about in "alice's restaurant"), pop art was big so peace signs were everywhere,as well as signs saying "flower power" and other slogans of the day. then,of course, there was the music. someone always had a transistor radio playing,especially in the summer by the pool. "san francisco" is one of many songs about those times,written in those times,and has become an essential part of those times. i'm glad i was there to experience it in some small way,and even more glad i'm here to remember it.
I was born in 67
♫ You can get anything you want... ♫
The vocal melody has a lullaby quality. It never strays far from, nor fails to return to home.
The song is specific: In the summer, in San Francisco, there will be a Love-In, wear flowers in your hair (to identify as one of the gentle people).
A "Love-In" is a gathering where participants try to actively love each other, it's not an orgy nor meant to be sexual. A Love-In suggests loving others as one might love a sister or brother or close friend. Some claim to have had profound experiences at such events, while others just laughed at the absurdity of humanity; I believe them all.
The US population in 1967 was 197 million. Today it is 332 million. San Francisco was a small city. It was low-rise, due to fear of earthquakes. One could look down from the hills into the bay, an unobstructed view. It was charming.
The 1967 summer of love was a fleeting moment in the history of the youth movement. This beautiful song is an accurate and lasting reminder of the vibe of that time, for those that lived it and those yet to live. Very insightful reaction.
It was a movement that many of us never gave up on. Think of John Lennon's "Imagine" and the sentiments behind that song. This was an awakening by the young people in the US. We had seen the horror and corruption of the Vietnam War. There was the Unrest and riots of the Civil Rights movement. Black people were being murdered. Our Country was finally waking up to it's own reality. The atrocities that America was and had committed were being recognized and not covered up anymore. The Hippie movement was about moving forward. We, the young people of that era, realized that we didn't have to be like that anymore. We could be kinder, gentler, and more just. Sadly, many lost track of what we learned back then. But there is hope. Right now there is a movement amoung liberal minded people for a more diverse and just society and it is infecting our politics. Thank goodness. But that is the concept that the song embodies.
Look what liberal minded did to San Francisco...it's a shithole😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
Imagine describes Communist principles calling for a one world government mono culture without real meaning. The state will possess everything and also take away your spiritual life. Communisn has proven to be a catastrophe. The Soviets and Chinese learnt not to mess with people's religion or their stuff. Sadly, delusional Western Marxists remain delusional and dysfunctional and want to kill the Christian God and take your stuff, bit by bit.
There is something that I have always really liked about a lot of hippie music
I never knew that John Phillips wrote this, but you can definitely hear his style in it.
It was a moment in time and a neighborhood and a cultural event.
Great songwriter Philips was - the beautiful melody fits these lyrics so perfectly...
The 1967 summer of love was a fleeting moment in the history of the youth movement. This beautiful song is an accurate and everlasting reminder of the feeling of that time, for those that lived it and those yet to be born. Very insightful reaction.
I was 10 and because I had no experience of the world described nor geographical proximity, the voice , lyrics and tune spoke of something magical to me.
The beauty of this song has become increasingly apparent to me over the years. I might surprise you to say (and others can disagree) that while 1967 is long gone, there are still hints and echoes of easy-breezy hippie vibes and love of music and brotherhood in SF, especially in certain neighborhoods/areas and associated with certain festivals and special events; part of why it's one of my favorite places in the world to this day. Another 1967 song about the city that paints a similar but more complex picture is The Animals _San Franciscan Nights_
I've always found it odd how those who preach about love and being peaceful are the ones that are ridiculed by the media and general public.
Makes me understand why Jesus was so easily killed
@DewiSant-o3y
Yeah, even Jesus would be too Woke for many today.
I was only 7 in 1967, but I miss what I didn't have. Strangely, I sometimes sense that feeling of shared vibes and community, whenever I see Hells Angel chapters rallying around a cancer kid or suchlike.
The capacity for "dancing barefoot like noone's watching" is perhaps still reachable in us all. And this song makes it almost feel tangible.
An iconic sound of the sixties with twangy, jangly guitars, tinkling chimes and even sitar in the mix, and that voice (I wrote this just before hearing you agree with me!). Corny lyrics, but such an infectious ear-worm! I've never been to California but this song still feels like summer.
Born in 1962, this was in the background in my childhood. It was all gone before I had any idea what was going on.
Sweet reaction, Amy! Your loose crochet-look shirt would fit right in if you added bell bottoms, sandals and some flowers in your hair! I have LOVED this song since it came out when I was 9. I feel similarly about Get Together by The Youngbloods. Every year, I think I love them both more, and I have absolutely no shame in thinking and wishing that the hippy sentiments of peace, love and brotherhood/sisterhood should never die! In fact, we could use a lot more of that today! (Although I do think we can do without the drugs and understand that “free love” has a downside.) I was too young to be a hippy, but I’ve always admired their idealism and still do! I am a hippy in spirit at 66! ❤️✌🏻✌🏻❤️
I live with flowers in my head. Inside it, of course.
Thanks Amy, a blissful, beautiful song played too seldom.
Reminds me of Scarborough Fair. There's an almost ironic melancholy, nostalgic sense of longing; the song carries us towards paradise, but we are still very much still on the journey; not there yet. i.e., the Hippy Peace Love and Understanding movement.
I love it that music mentions N.Zs music hit chart but doesnt know or mention new zealand in no other circumstances lol
Austin, Texas, was once like that. I remember going to a concert downtown, flower children all over. The venue was The Vulcan Gas Company, and we were listening to Shiva's Head Band, as I recall. Memories!
Drugs and violence killed the optimism of the peace and love movement. 67 was the height of the peace and love movement, the summer of love. 68 saw the murder of MLK and Robert Kennedy. Drugs took the lives of some of our heroes and the innocence of many more. Frank Zappa was issuing warnings at the time.
This was a very interesting period in the history of America pop music, filled with a lot of 'what-ifs'.
John Phillips, Scott McKenzie and Dick Weissman were the Journeymen, a 1960's band.
Classic American folk music, love them.
I vivedly remember being in the back seat of our station wagon riding thru the Haight and my sister pointing out the window yelling excitingly look hippies! From that point on she cut her hair into a afro wearing flower printed dresses and such lol. I thought I had the hippest sister in our square ass town
John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas. That's why it sounds like one of their tunes.
This great song includes a sitar weaving in and out of the mix.
Scott McKenzie did co-write the Beach Boys' 1988 No. 1 "Kokomo."
Thank you.
I have always been enamored of the key and tempo changes in this song.
The real pairing for this is not "All You Need Is Love," but "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay"
Born in 1967, I remember the hippies in the early seventies and when I grew up in the 80s it all had vanished. I remember that something valuable had gone for good. It wasn't there to stay forever. But we still have the music!
I am a year older than you and still remember a bit of that era. Not a lot.
John Philips from the Mama and the Papas was the lyricist for this song.
This is part of the reaction to the Vietnam War (to them the American War).
The draft to go fight far away for a dubious cause and very possibly die destroyed a generation’s hope in the USA.
I grew up through all this hatred and love from the same nation.
I’m glad that was in Scotland.
So many "one-hit-wonders" from this time. Reminds me of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky." 😊
Haight-Asbury, the Fillmore West, the Presidio, Ghirardelli Square, the cable cars… "Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat!" Those were the days.
my favorite song -- ever
Best Hippie song ever.
This song is a snap shot of San Francisco in the 60s, part anti war part flower power. Fun fact, the family band The Cowsills who were the inspiration for the TV show The Partridge Family had a song that they wanted to release called The Flower Girl, but there manager didn't want it to get confused with Are You Going To San Francisco, wear flowers in your hair, so they called it The Park the rain and other things.
Yeah Amy, let's put flower in our hair ❤
It's a credit to how good a song it is that it's timeless in a way although it's specifically written about the hippie gatherings in 67. I'm in SF and sometimes we rock that song only partially in an ironic manner. A lot of people move here to get away from more uptight parts of the country and there's still a sense of sanctuary to be found despite The City's problems
Time yo check out the Mama's and Papas California Dreamin.
That lifestyle truly existed, and not just in San Francisco. Austin, Texas had that lifestyle, and so did Atlanta. I remember roaming Atlanta's Piedmont Park with all the hippies in the summer of 1969. Some musical groups who had performed at the two-day Atlanta Pop Festival remained in town and performed free concerts in Piedmont Park. While my wardrobe was quite hippie-ish-a Marine Corps dress blue jacket, jeans, T-shirt, and fringed boots-my hair wasn't long, mostly because it was unmanageable. Besides, I was in college, studying electronic engineering.
The best part of the Scott McKenzie song was the modulation going into the final verse. Otherwise, the lyrics were mundane.
From my perspective, the hippie culture was an easy way to contract herpes.
Massive song, massive hit and massive influence. Meant a lot to the hippie movement at the time. I was all of twelve in 1967. I'm an Australian but I have been to San Francisco and to be honest, it didn't leave me with the warm and fuzzies. I didn't actually like the city despite being told I would. I also have a hard time imagining would it would have been like.
It’s so nostalgic now. So sweet and dreamlike
I strongly recommend "Who Needs the Peace Corps?" by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention as a necessary (and very funny) corrective. Let's just say it's a rather different take on the Haight-Ashbury scene.
You should try The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations. It was Paul McCartney's inspirational challenge to come out with something even better than the Beach Boys. An iconic song of the sixties. Another one you should try is California dreamin' by the Mamas and the Papas, also written by John Phillips.
I’ll have to admit now at age 61….i get a little melancholy listening to this song…..thinking about what could have been…might have been….but it’s gone like a shooting star in the nighttime sky…..
I missed the Summer of Love. Uncle Sam paid my way, all expenses paid to Nam, that year. However, when I returned to the UW, Dawwgs variety, it was still that time! I remember the protests that closed I5. I remember the protestors, including me, surrounding the departments thought to be funded by the Military. I remember Hari Krishna in saffron robes dancing on the streetcorners corners on The Ave. I remember young Black Men with their Black berets handing out Panther propaganda. I remember incense pouring out of the many small headshops. The campus libraries had books back then!
It was a perfect snapshot of 1967 which unfortunately did not exist before and has not existed after. A moment in time.
Height is Love, Amy!
Beautiful times and thoughts in many ways, but then it was drawn into the gutter with heavy drugs and then the dreadful happenings at the Rolling Stones free Altamont concert just put an end to the whole feeling. The flower power era was over.
Eric Burdon wrote a song about -SFthat whole era--San Francisian Nights -also Monterey-sky pilot-lots of songs about that era
I spent many hours sitting in front of the valve radio in our dining room, tuning in stations and listening to music while my parents were away and the housemaid was doing her chores. My love for blues and rock originates from that era, this song is the one I remember and loved best. I didn't understand the words, it's not my native tongue. I was three or four.
John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas wrote the song for him. The Mamas and Papas were a phenomenal group. They are to be discovered.
❤❤❤❤
Another song of the San Fransisco scene of that time is "San Fransisco Nights," by The Animals.
Well, you said most of what can be said about this song Amy. I don't know how many SF hippies, back, then, actually played this song but it was surely and anthem for those outside of hippie life as a representation or introduction. And it sure sounded good on the radio among all the other music that was current at that time.
History has treated the SF hippie movement very kindly, the tails today are of the colorful fashion and jewelry, the great music, gentle drug use, good causes promoting and attitudes of hippies that were very kind, loving and non-aggressive, I relish in it as well, I am no exception.
But there was another side to the hippie movement, they were generally viewed as slackers who did not want to work and provide for themselves and thus they created a theft issue, they stole from people, many had Soviet Union supporting communist political ideologies that the rest of America found difficult to process, average family structured Americans lived in fear of losing their teen aged children to this movement, the gentle weed smoking image is a farce, SF had a hard drug problem with much trauma and damage created by very harsh and hard drug use, they were viewed as dirty people, low hygiene standards and community diseases broke out in SF.
I experienced the hippie movement from afar and later in the mid 70's (in 1967 I was 4 years old) and from age 6 I was raised in The Netherlands with the Amsterdam hippies (very real) and Dutch interpretations. In Amsterdam it was really the hippies who started the Living rent free in House boats in the Amsterdam water channels, the Dutch had their own hippie music scene, the band "Shocking blue (Venus)" as an example and artists like Dutch language singer "Boudewijn de Groot". By the mid 70's living outside of Amsterdam we consumed hippie paraphernalia like great scented candles, great (art) wall posters, great T-shirts and other fashion, living room wall treatments of cork tiles, etc. and of course the music.
Great song (terrible digitalization, sound quality btw) and thanks for the video, as always.
Yes, I can see you as one of the 'earth-mothers' from back then. A dip into the Woodstock festival may be nice to embrace more of that hippie era and see that sparkle in your eye shine even more.
I was a Midwesterner, but spent 1967 in Westport, CT. I grew up with musicians all around me. Many years later, I lived on a sailboat in San Francisco Bay, and ran into Wavy Gravy in Live Oak Park in Berkeley. (He was the MC at Woodstock).
We are all FAR more connected with each other than we generally think. - also across languages and cultures - and across time.
Love that song
What a song. It transports me and makes me wish I was there. When I was young, I never knew why Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin started singing this song right in the middle of one of their songs in a popular live recording of theirs. I wasn't familiar at the time with this song.
I don't know why but this song reaction makes me very happy, even before watching it.
Born in 1962 and have memory fragments of being carried around in my Dad's backpack on sunny days while we walked around San Francisco in the mid-to-late 60s on weekend trips, after driving in from our family home outside Sacramento. I had no idea the cultural foment in 1967, but the music and the clothing are etched into my mind, and I sometimes wonder about what we were so close to but so far from on those wonderful trips of cable cars, cotton candy, Lombard St., sea gulls, and the Wharf.
As contra-point, I recall reading that George Harrison, visiting at the height of Haight-Asbury, was none too impressed, sensing mostly lassitude. The Beatles -- they were hard at work all thru the 60s, their 60s seems to have transpired in the 70s.
In 1967, people had hope for the future. In 2024, not so much.
If you go listen to the journeymen you'll hear McKenzie who sang lead on many of their songs.
Don't think Amy has reacted to the Mamas and the Papas yet, John Philip's folk rock quartet. He was their main song writer and a very good one. "San Francisco" is rather weak compared to the hit songs The Mamas and the Papas had. Perhaps that's why he gave it to his friend Scott McKenzie. Their first hit was "California Dreaming" and I'm sure Amy would enjoy it, especially the harmonizing of the singers.
She also needs to listen to Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Carly Simon, James Taylor, more Dylan, more Dead, and many more.
The VOICE of Scott McKenzie
Nice song choice. To round out the 60's vibe, a couple of songs from The Mamas & the Papas and The Beach Boys would be fun.
Although I never made it to San Francisco back then, this song, more than any other, is so evocative of the time and the mood and the energy of the hippie ethos. It brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it as a remembrance of an era that passed all too soon.
❤
You'd have to have lived through that period. For you, it's a series of images, for people of my age it was highly, emotionally charged. It was also a rejection of the political crap of the time.
Heads up, Amy. You will eventually hear "Blue Jay Way" in your Beatles 150 series - a different view of SF in 1967.
one of best ever
Erano i tempi in cui gli americani, sempre in combattimento dalla seconda guerra mondiale, cominciavano a reagire: il vietnam, i soldati che continuavano a morire per una guerra che non era la loro, la coscrizione, le prime canzoni di protesta, uno slogan di questi anni era "put flowers in your guns".C'era un grande fermento sociale nelle università e per le strade. I giovani erano stanchi, sognavano un mondo migliore per tutti, senza discriminazioni, di piena libertà, avevano voglia di spostarsi, di conoscere altre persone... il loro motto era "peace and love". Idealisti che non sono riusciti a cambiare il mondo. Ma questa canzoncina incarna con tenerezza un desiderio che purtroppo non si è mai realizzato. Peccato😔
Let's go to San Francisco by the Flowerpot Men is that other song. You should have a listen. Musically it is even more groovy!
I love your videos Amy. Here is a quick critique of this song. First off, I am not fan of the bridge, yes it works, but barely. And second, he did not end the song where it should have ended and added a bit too much to the ending, John Denver used to do this sometimes. This is still a great song, and the aspects of it I disagree with do not take away from that.
I first heard this song watching a recording of the Monterrey Pop festival. I lived about 300 miles up the coast from there back when I saw it. I get the same feelings that you describe from that song. I wish I'd been there back then, but it was before my time. I get sad thinking about that time and place because the world became such a letdown afterwards. I wonder how they feel about it.
This is the song of the Hippie generation. We now know that it was an illusion.
Cf. Spinal Tap's "(Listen to the) Flower People"
Sad. We need to get it back.
After this perspective you should definitely listen to some of Frank Zappa!!! „Flower Punk” or „Who need the peace corps?” from one of his early albums „We are only in it for the money”. Great political commentary, lyrics composition and experimental music from him and his band!❤
Goooood choice! Amazing how it captures the spirit of an era and can make you nostalgic for it even if you were born much later. I wonder what music best represents the zeitgeist today?
If you bought a 60s compilation album in the 70s this would probably be on it.
When I got to U.C. Berkeley in'69, as I entered the student lounge a clerk informed me "NO SLEEPING" in the lounge.The atmosphere was different by then. The People's Park in Berkeley was closed by a chain link fence. Market St. and Telegraph reminded me of L.A.'s 5th st.
When this song came out, it seemed to me like a cynical attempt to capitalize on the media cliches. I can listen to it now.
That picture could almost have been taken in Glen Coe in the Highlands of Scotland, almost anywhere in the Lake District in North West England or even Snowdonia in North Wales.
Regarding to Hippie vibe: Let's get together (Youngbloods for example), Dark on You now (Peanut butter conspiracy) etc.
Well the song stayed popular for a decade or so then forgotten, but not bad considering how specific it is.
Now you showed the picture: In Germany you can from time to time meet some die hard hippies driving the
RYEBREAD (as we call the VW-van) it is however not yellow but usually purple or pink with big flowers all
over - some sight!
It is remembered. Fondly.
Why didn’t you watch the video for the song? There are several that give you a montage of San Francisco in the year of the summary of love. You missed the chance.
I'm a NorCal native who was seven when this song came out. We lived about 90 minutes from San Francisco. My older sister moved there a year later with her partner and baby (she was in high school when I was born). I remember when she brought me some "hippie beads" and I proudly wore them to third grade.😂 When I was older she told me what it was like during that time. She said the often went to concerts in Golden Gate Park where they saw Janis Joplin, The Jefferson Airplane and The Greatful Dead. Once I graduated from high school in the late 70s I would often drive over, go to the Haight and try to imagine what it must have npbern like during that time. As you said though time marches on and even ten years later all those hippies either moved to more rural places or turned into yuppies driving BMWs. Nothing stays the same.
I was born in 1960, and remember peace marches in my city. I wasn't allowed to leave my yard to go watch them (a block away, I could see them a little), as I was too young!
You have reacted to Bee Gees before and they infact made a counter song, you could call it an anti flower power song, to this one called Massachussets. In this song there is a line stating "The Lights Went Out In Massachussetts", and why did they go out? Because everybody went to San Franciso. These 2 songs are somewhat linked together, not on purpose, but more by chance.
Massachusetts also went number 1 in the UK and 11 in the US (I think).
I would agree that actual hippies were a small part of the population I was in a fraternity just after this song came out. Frats were not that popular then. However i also had a roommate whose father was an Army general and he was in ROTC Yet he used to go to protests and throw rocks at the cops. He was by far the biggest doper on oour dorm floor A lot of his friends were hippies though. The political atmosphere was far more liberal then than it is now.
best version - th-cam.com/video/UBEhVSJjwOg/w-d-xo.html
Amy should watch Woodstock (the movie)
You would make a perfect hippie Amy :D
What happened to San Fransisco, and where did all the gentle people go? Eventually they started running it -Turns out, when you run a city on ideals, and an untrammelled belief in human nature, things get a little… complicated. Even Google Maps gave up and moved to Portland 😂
In 1970's Australia, surfers lived out of VW Combi's as drove up and down the coast looking for waves. Some of those Combi's are worth a fortune now.
Love this song. But if you need an antidote, here is Frank Zappa's "Who Needs The Peace Corps?": th-cam.com/video/8LaZmyqCKUs/w-d-xo.html Mind you, I was in San Francisco two years ago and still found the people gentle there, although I stayed out of the Tenderloin area. Some of the old spirit still survives in one form or another in some of the neighborhoods. I loved it there.
A great old tune -that set the tone for 1967