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Perhaps more than any other state, California gets a lot of shit talked about it (well…maybe Florida actually wins on that one). This was even before the constant reports about a mass exodus because of how expensive and overtaxed it is as a place to live rather than visit. The long-standing “issue” many seem to take with it (hence, the river of ridicule) stems mostly from the idea that Los Angeles represents everything about it, therefore it must be a “nation” of superficial, self-obsessed twats. Even though the bulk of that demographic actually resides in New York City. But anyway, just because the state invokes the ire of a lot of jealous bitches (cue Don DeLillo writing, “California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom”), there are those who have no trouble understanding the majesty and appeal of the Golden State.
This, of course, might prompt the Janis Ian in Mean Girls-inspired response, “That’s the thing with you plastics. You think everybody is in love with you when actually, everybody hates you!” But that wasn’t the case with songwriter Douglass Cross and composer George Cory or The Mamas and the Papas’ John and Michelle Phillips. The former two being the brainchildren behind “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and the latter being the ones behind “California Dreamin’” (ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the five hundred greatest songs of all time). In both instances surrounding the creation of the songs, the writers felt the call of California after moving to New York. In John and Michelle’s case, they were trapped in a dreary New York setting during the winter (thus, “California dreamin’/On such a winter’s day”), and yearning to return to the golden sunshine of California.
Cross and Cory, on the other hand, can acknowledge that San Francisco is not without its own form of coldness and grayness (“The morning fog may chill the air, I don’t care”), but that it is of the singular “California variety” (a.k.a. not nearly as bleak and biting). They, too, address a certain unavoidable loneliness that permeates New York, resulting in the lyrics, “I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan/I’m going home to my city by the Bay/I left my heart in San Francisco/High on a hill, it calls to me/To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars.” Cross and Cory also can’t help but mention the sunshine (“When I come home to you, San Francisco/Your golden sun will shine for me”) as a major factor for wanting to return to California, de facto a major reason why New York blows chunks. Ergo, in both songs, California’s weather is touted as its superpower, not its downfall (as is the trend of the moment when discussing the ravaging effects of climate change on the state…while, for some reason, no one seems to be talking half as much about the flood that is coming for NYC).
Created just three years apart, with “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” being released in 1962 and “California Dreamin’” in 1965, the affection for the state was starting to become a palpable trend. Perhaps most notably begun by the cast of I Love Lucy in 1955, in an episode titled “California, Here We Come!” Repurposed from Al Jolson’s 1924 rendition (“California, Here I Come”)—during which, unfortunately, he’s wearing blackface—the quartet is featured driving over the George Washington Bridge as they sing bombastically in their brand-new Pontiac Star Chief convertible. The image of Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel gleefully abandoning the oppressive, cold confines of NYC in this boat of a vehicle signals their ready and willing conversion to California culture (a phrase Woody Allen, back when his name could be said, would likely call an oxymoron). And established the idea that, when given a choice between “intellectual” and anti-luxurious New York versus warm, spacious California, a person would opt for the latter every time.
Even the man “born and bred” in New York who would become synonymous with San Francisco, Tony Bennett, chose California when presented with a song like “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Although Tennessee Ernie Ford (another I Love Lucy connection for you) was the original choice to sing it, Bennett ended up getting his eyes on it and performing it in the Fairmount Hotel’s Venetian Room in Nob Hill (where he would continue to do so in subsequent decades, making the single his signature every time he performed there). At that first December 1961 performance, Mayor George Christopher (the last example of SF ever having a Republican mayor) was in attendance, as well as Joseph Alioto, who would serve as San Francisco’s mayor in the years soon after. Thus, from the start, the song was historic, becoming an instantaneous piece of San Francisco’s identity. Just as “California Dreamin’” would for the entire state as a whole. With John and Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas having no clue that their ire for New York winters would result in such a phenomenon.
Although Michelle was the California-born one between the two of them, John would prove his undying devotion to the state yet again in 1967, when he wrote “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” for Scott McKenzie. Because to know California (rather than know its stereotype) is to love it. Whereas to know New York (especially during the winter) is to fathom that there is wisdom in the advice, “Go west.” As a matter of fact, it was a New York newspaper editor (Horace Greeley, allegedly) who immortalized that line.
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Genna Rivieccio
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