The San Francisco anthem that actually has nothing to do with San Francisco

(Credits: Far Out / CBS Records)

Sat 21 February 2026 0:00, UK

With the psychedelic explosion of the 1960s, San Francisco quickly established itself as the epicentre of hippie counterculture. Before too long, then, that newly-formed reputation was cemented by the tones of Scott McKenzie, with ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)’, despite the fact that the song had little to do with the West Coast city. 

San Francisco’s cultural landscape was brimming with revolutionary potential back in the 1960s, and it was the acid-dripped output of artists like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin who altered the wider musical realm to what was going on in the Bay Area.

By the time the ‘Summer of Love’ rolled around in 1967, San Francisco was the inarguable headquarters of the hippie revolution and, as the focal point of the entire hippie counterculture, it was inevitable that the city itself would soon become the focus of the music itself.

Every movement needs its headquarters, after all, and San Francisco – particularly its Bay Area – was about as close to an organised temple of anti-war psychedelia as the hippie generation ever came, spurred on both by the groups that emerged from its music scene and the almost religious importance of venues like the Fillmore West. It was in that spirit that McKenzie sang about the city and its penchant for wearing flowers in its hair.

In many ways, ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair’ was the perfect hippie anthem, perfectly encapsulating the rather complacent ‘peace and love’ attitude that would spur thousands of other young people to grow their hair out, purchase their first pair of flared trousers, and experiment with the freeing properties of acid and marijuana.

Even still, once you zoom out on the definitive hippie anthem, it is worth noting that the song itself had virtually nothing to do with the city of San Francisco. For starters, the person who originally wrote the track, John Phillips, of New York vocal outfit The Mama’s and the Papa’s, was actually from South Carolina. Meanwhile, McKenzie (who Phillips had played alongside during the fleeting tenure of The Journeymen) hailed from Jacksonville, Florida. 

What’s more, the single was recorded in the musical powerhouse of Los Angeles. Out of the track’s songwriters, production staff, and even the studio, San Francisco was nowhere to be found. As such, it is perhaps the only city-based anthem that has virtually no tangible relationship with that city. 

Then again, the song’s absolute lack of connection to San Francisco itself perhaps works in its favour. After all, many people listening to the single – particularly in the United Kingdom, where it reached the top of the singles chart – had never been to the Bay Area, and relied solely on the rapidly expanding musical reputation of the city to paint a mental image of what it might look like.

In that sense, McKenzie’s recording created an atmosphere of hippie idealism around the city, which remained long after the song dropped out of the charts. It might not have been the most authentic ode to the city, but without it, the ‘Summer of Love’ that dominated the cultural output of the West Coast in 1967 might have gone entirely unnoticed by the wider world.