How did San Francisco’s official anthem peak at a disappointing 19th in the charts?
Believe it or not, but two songs have been granted official anthem status in San Francisco.
The city boasted a rich musical heritage when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the then-mayor Dianne Feinstein stepped up to the tall task of designating the one standard which best illustrated The Golden City back in 1984. Where to start?
Naturally, the potent punk and new wave petri-dish wasn’t likely to get a look in. Some of the finest underground bands of the late 1970s were all feverishly operating on San Francisco’s DIY fringes: Flipper, Units, Chrome, and Tuxedomoon pulling punk and art closer together. Dead Kennedys scored two attacks on the failing political elite that can stand as alternative anthems, ‘Let’s Lynch the Landlord’, an incendiary attack on Feinsten’s corporatist cosiness to the property developing leeches plaguing the city’s working class.
The board may have more time for the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood’s peace and love explosion a decade earlier. Yet, the era’s antiestablishment rhetoric and eager embrace of LSD sticks a spanner in the works. So, no Grateful Dead or Jefferson Aeroplane, and Scott McKenzie’s ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)’ just too close to hippy cliche for inclusion.
So what did they go for? After heavy campaigning from locals, San Francisco’s official anthem was split into two: a ballad and a song. For the latter, 1984’s split pushed ‘San Francisco’ from the namesake 1936 disaster musical as the legit City Song, while a much-loved standard beloved by the Bay Area but receiving a poor show on the charts would be designated as the City Ballad.
So, which San Francisco anthem peaked at only number 19?
The City Ballad had been floating around since 1953. Written by George Cory and Douglass Cross, a sentimental ode to the Windy City’s stirring fog and distinct cable cars was originally gifted to contralto singer Claramae Turner, who performed the piece at encores but never actually cut her own studio recording.
‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ would eventually find its way into Tony Bennett’s swing repertoire. Cutting his own version in New York’s CBS 30th Street Studio in early 1962, the future City Ballad was in fact first issued as a B-side to ‘Once Upon A Time’. DJs were nonplussed by its promo, flipping the single to play the intended supporting track instead. Before long, ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ would sell gold record status, earn Bennett two Grammys, and swiftly stand as his ultimate standard.
Yet, for such classic stature, ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ only sailed to a lowly number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. It wasn’t even Bennett’s highest charting single, counting 15-odd singles that surpassed his San Francisco love letter in units shifts, including several number ones.
Still, chart success never mattered to San Francisco’s official song criteria. Originally selecting Bennett’s anthem in 1969 before the later song split, ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ number 19 effort is set to define the city’s musical character, as well as the crooner himself, for years yet.
