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The Spectacle Blog
Singer Scott McKenzie passed away yesterday of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. He was 73.
McKenzie rose to international stardom with his 1967 hit “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)”. It was written by the late John Phillips of The Mamas & The Papas as the theme song for The Monterey Pop Festival and became an unexpected hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
The song has been both credited and blamed for drawing young people to the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco during the Summer of Love. Yet “San Francisco” also became the unofficial anthem of the Prague Spring the following year during the ill-fated peaceful uprising against Soviet rule in Czechoslovakia.
As for McKenzie, he largely dropped out of public view until the mid-1980s when he began to tour with a revamped Mamas & Papas. McKenzie also co-wrote The Beach Boys’ 1988 hit “Kokomo” along with Phillips, Beach Boy Mike Love and Terry Melcher.
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More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/08/19/scott-mckenzie-rip
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JP| 8.20.12 @ 8:48AM
It's hard to believe that the first of the Baby Boomers are leaving the scene. Granted, Scott was a tad older;but, the generation that once prided itself on trusting no-one over thrity is now on the far side of 30.
Not to speak ill of r the dead, but I always thought the Going to San Francsico song was a bit sappy. But, considering all of the destructiveness going on at that time, we should admit to the songs naivite. Scott himself seemed to be the real deal. He was mostly a private songwriter, who enjoyed his art much more thant he politics that surrounded it. Just days before he died, he posted a final poem in which he rides out into his beloved Joshua Tree desert never to return.
May he rest in peace.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 8.20.12 @ 9:11AM
I've always thought that "San Francisco" was the optimists' counterpoint to the pessimist's "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire.
Skippy| 8.20.12 @ 12:29PM
Out to Joshua Tree, never to return.
Just like Gram Parsons.
Ave atque vale.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 8.20.12 @ 9:09AM
Speaking of his relationship with the Mamas & the Papas, it has been written that daughter McKenzie Phillips was named after Scott. As a result of her revelations after her John Phillips’ death about the allegations of sexual abuse she reports to have been experienced from him (her father) and others, I am creeped out every time I hear both “If You’re Going to San Francisco” as well as any Mamas & Papas song.
Seek| 8.20.12 @ 1:06PM
His summer of 1967 hit was a sweet, melodic folk-rock anthem that hit the youth g-spot at just the right time. Lyrically naive? Of course, it was. But Scott McKenzie, a Scots-Canadian, forever will occupy a small place in our hearts, another one-shot wonder to leave us. R.I.P.