Why San Francisco?

Hi. I'm new to the forum and I have a question about the old days-

I'm curious as to why the hippies picked San Francisco as center of their movement. Considering that they could have chosen any city in America (or any city in the world) To be the capitol of the hippie universe, I'm wondering what set San Francisco apart from the other cities, and what made it special to the members of the movement.

Any light that anyone could shed on this would be appreciated.
Thanks.

 

Apparently you've never been there.you've never seen jerry or grace sing in the park otherwise you wouldn't ask.

Strobe light beam, creates dreams
Walls move, minds do too
On a warm San Franciscan night

Old child , young child
Feel all right

On a warm San Franciscan night
Angels sing, leather wings
Jeans of blue, Harley Davidson's too
On a warm San Franciscan night

Old angel, young angel
Feel all right
On a warm San Franciscan night

I wasn't born there
Perhaps I'll die there
There's no place left to go
San Francisco

Cops face is filled with hate
Heavens above
He's on a street called "Love"
When will they ever learn?
Old cop, young cop
Feel all right
On a warm San Franciscan night

The children are cool
They don't raise fools
It's an American dream
Includes Indians too


I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Tony Bennett

The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay

The glory that was Rome is of another day
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
The morning fog may chill the air, I don't care

My love waits there in San Francisco
Above the blue and windy sea
When I come home to you, San Francisco
Your golden sun will shine for me

http://www.bluesforpeace.com/


​

 

while i wouldn't dispute the appeal of the city by the bay and it's surrounding regeon, that also just happened, accross the bay, to include the university of california at birkley and down the peninsula aways there was stanford, so you had the intillectual stimuli as well. but i don't think san francisco was so much uniquely picked as uniquely remembered. it was favored by the cream of activist musicians though. many of whome did move there. or settled in other places where the sf area was the closest major city to. but really it DID happen elsewhere, pretty much every major city had something going on. well i wasn't there, in the city i mean, i was living up in the hills of the sierra's, north east of there about 168 miles.

=^^=
.../\...

 

it just happend that way they diddnt pick anything

 

San Francisco always tolerated outsiders, rebels and artists. The hippies followed the Beats (who, at least, TRIED to be intellectuals).


San Francisco when I was 20, was heaven on-architectural-earth. To wake up on a 1967-summer-morning, with the lovely bay windows and Victorian buildings crowding in, was heaven enough.

AH-- THE PEOPLE! They come and mostly go.

I lived the better part of 2 years in SF, and I always remembered the weather, the houses and the fog and fog-horns.

They-- ma'am-- are eternal.

In the key of G-- "I left my heart, in San Francisco, besides the beautiful bay.........

 

that was so nice... i can smell the morning breeze... you just made me all warn inside thinking of jerry wakeing up in the morning with that big smile saying yep this is life. no where else i would rather be

 

thudly has a way of puting things, dos'nt he!

 

I came and went. How exciting it was. Sunday in the park. The tick tack houses. Charlie Sunblade.

 

Why San Francisco?......good question!.
I believe that the beatniks were based there: Allen Ginsburg ,Kerouac,Cassady etc.
It was a San Francisco Disc Jockey that coined the label:'Hippies' in the early 1960s to describe the newer tribes flowing out of the beatnik movement.

 

It wasn't always what it was, you know. San Francisco had a history of being "bawdy". A lot of the seaport was actually built outward. In the 40s and 50s it was hardly the most liberal place on earth.
Areas in which artistic expression are allowed to grow and flourish are generally places where counter culture will flock... there are pockets of this in most large cities in the USA (Chicago, Philadelphia, NYC, St Louis, Denver).
Hard as this may be to believe, San Francisco might also have been a very cheap city to live in back in the day. It's hardly that way now, though

 

That evil-looking rooster reminds me of the one we had when I was about 10 or 11. We had about 50 hens and everytime I went to collect eggs, the vicious prick would fly in my face, spurring and pecking me.


This isn't a joke: roosters, some of them, fear nothing.

One day, my granny called on the phone and told me to pick a fat hen for Sunday dinner; if I beheaded it, she would clean it and cook it.

I saw my chance!

I grabbed that evil rooster, chopped it's head off at the killing post with an Army surplus machete and tried to bullshit granny, telling her it was a big hen.

Nah, she knew better, gave me hell, had to parboil the tough old prick, but we soon had a nicer rooster to replace it.

As far as I know, the hens didn't miss him.









.

 

If your going to San Francisco be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
Great song !! lol

 

Now you need a steel helmet so you can survive a police beating of course L.A police Dept is much better at this.

 

the best acid did come from berkely,i stopped in the 80's,but even then i was getting the liquid down from Berkeley.There was a group in and around the thirties that lived in the dunes around pismo beach.They became known as dunnies,possibly your germans.I know there was one german guy who lived out at giant rock for years.Giant rock is a record size free standing boulder for what thats worth.He had a dugout underneath.Perhaps these are the german "hippies"you speak of.i'd never put it together before until i read your post and it sorta clicked.Thanks for the post.Verry interesting.

 

LA cops motto:We'll treat you like a King

 

Too Bad Hitler did not fallow those german hippies ideas .

 

ain't nothing til you've met a mad osterich.Chickens don't kick...

 

hitler in a micro bus,with a big grin,flashing a peace sign...hitler at a nude beach...der furer tripping on owsley

 

For Free
by Joni Mitchell


I slept last night in a good hotel
I went shopping today for jewels
The wind rushed around in the dirty town
And the children let out from the schools
I was standing on a noisy corner
Waiting for the walking green
Across the street he stood
And he played real good
On his clarinet for free

Now me I play for fortunes
And those velvet curtain calls
I've got a black limousine
And two gentlemen
Escorting me to the halls
And I play if you have the money
Or if you're a friend to me
But the one man band
By the quick lunch stand
He was playing real good for free

Nobody stopped to hear him
Though he played so sweet and high
They knew he had never
Been on their T.V.
So they passed his music by
I meant to go over and ask for a song
Maybe put on a harmony
I heard his refrain
As the signal changed
He was playing real good for free