I wish they hadn't faded the song out quickly at the end of the recording.
This lush, enveloping vibe just suddenly pulls away, leaving you chilled and
disappointed. Yes, just as the hopes of a utopian world of
peace, joy, and understanding was abruptly shattered by Kent State, Nixon,
and Viet Nam.
Can you take the '60's? I lived through it-- a child, really-- and, in retrospect, I ask
myself how we were able to absorb such a wild swing of expectations, from
the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Chicago
and the Democratic Convention, Nixon....
"San Francisco" by Scott
MacKenzie.
Why? Precisely because it is
one of the most hauntingly beautiful of those idealistic songs of the late
60's (see sidebar) that evoked a blissful world of peace and love and
expanded minds and harmony and spiritual connectedness... just waiting for a
new generation to reach out and embrace it.
San Francisco became a magnet for those idealists, young girls and boys
running away from home, hitch-hiking West. They gravitated to
Haight-Ashbury. And for a short time, it did seem magical, at least
from the inside. I expect most people today would readily expect the
crash, the invasion of drug dealers and pimps, the poverty, the waste, and
the sadness. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...
There should be a "Fair and Tender Ladies" for San
Francisco, for Haight- Ashbury. "They're like a star on a cloudy
morning / first they'll appear, and then they're gone".
Or, more poignantly: "You made me believe... that
the sun rose in the west." Wear your flowers in your hair.
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© Bill Van Dyk
2009 All Rights Reserved
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