The main reason why I’ve chosen to write about the song San Francisco today is because I can’t get out of my head. While I knew that it was a popular 60s song, I wasn’t aware of its iconic status until today. By understanding the cultural and historical context of the song, I have been able to understand its powerful significance.
If you’re young like me, then you may not have heard about the Summer of Love, which took place in the summer of 1967. Basically, huge numbers of young people gathered in the major cities of the United States and this created huge public awareness of a counterculture that had developed throughout the 60s. For the first time, the hippie movement gained attention in the mainstream media. The center of the hippie revolution was by far San Francisco and an estimated 100,000 young people made their way to the Haight-Ashbury district of the city where they could find and share free food, free drugs and free love.
At about the same time, the Monterey Pop Festival was being held in June 1967 and in order to promote this, the Scott McKenzie song San Francisco was initially used. The song became a big hit reaching number 4 in the US and number 1 in the UK and other European countries. In reality, the song which initially promoted the festival became a springboard with which to promote counterculture and the hippie movement.
The lyrics of the song allude to an unprecedented nationwide movement taking place in the United States, clearly reflective of counterculture and hippies. The middle part of the song is by far my favorite part because it epitomizes the strength of the movement taking place.
“All across the nation such a strange vibration
People in motion
There’s a whole generation with a new explanation
People in motion people in motion”
That part of the song never ceases to make the hairs on my back stand up, while at the same time, it makes me want to go back in time and experience this incredible period in human history.
Overall, the song is very catchy making it extremely memorable with a passionate vocal performance. Sadly for Scott McKenzie, it was his only hit song in a low-profile musical career. Nevertheless, San Francisco remains a souvenir with which current and future generations of young people can remember the incredible period that was the 1960s.
