1967 Scott McKenzie: San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair

It's a useful point of contrast - from a song that in spite of its shortcomings has epitomised an idealisation of the sixties by simple virtue of the passing of time to one that sought to celebrate it on the hour it was released; 'San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)' was written by 'Papa' John Phillips to help promote the Monterey Pop Festival he had a key role in organising. A self aware counter culture self promoting is always going to wave a red flag of warning with me and so it goes here as McKenzie reels off the virtues of the era in a manner that's now as clichéd as a fancy dress shop 'hippie' costume of flares, kaftan and headband (with flowers, natch).

"If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. If you're going to San Francisco, you're going meet some gentle people there" - I don't know how much passing trade the city got from the UK record buying public, but I've always found McKenzie's wide eyed pigeonholing of a generation slightly patronising, and its bland descriptiveness fails to promote the new culture of youth in any way that's truly engaging - at least the shameless 1967 cash-in from the UK's own The Flowerpot Men 'Lets Go To San Francisco' injected an air of yearning aspiration to the notion that made you want to tag along for the ride. McKenzie doesn't. In fact, 'San Francisco' makes it sound all very cliquey - you might "meet" the gentle people, but unless you're part of the in-crowd then you're going to be locked out of the love-in.

Was San Francisco in 1967 one big free love extravaganza staffed by the gentle people? Is that really all there was to the place? I don't know, but the songs and imagery of the time and place that have been filtered through the decades have cemented it in a freeze frame of popular consciousness like the bodies in togas preserved at Pompei. Closer to home, I can compare it with shops of twenty first century London selling picture postcards of 'punks' decked out in green hair and safety pins. In other words, idealised nostalgia as out of time as it was inaccurate in its own. And though I lack first hand knowledge, a comparison with the music coming from the bands on that stage in Monterey (Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding et al, none of whom can be described as 'gentle') means I can't help but feel 'San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)' is singing from the same hymn sheet.