‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)‘ went to No. 1 on the UK singles chart. The song was written by John Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was written to promote the Monterey Pop Festival.

“That song, ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)’, did as much to perpetuate the myth of the Summer of Love as it did to draw music fans to Monterey for that June weekend. But it should be remembered that it was written in Los Angeles, and the San Francisco musicians who had been integral to the formation of the local hippie community heard it as a mainstream exploitation of their community ethos. To some extent the song reflected the general migration of young people into the Haight-Ashbury in search of that very community, but by the Summer of Love, many of the key figures in the San Francisco scene had already begun plotting their escape to the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)’ may have been the theme song of Monterey, but it was also unusually and immediately nostalgic. ”

Ian Inglis