San Francisco Girls (Return of the Native)

Album: Fever Tree (1968)
Charted: 91
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Songfacts®:

  • San Francisco was the focal point of the hippie counterculture in the late '60s. Some famous songs were written about this place and time, including "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)" by Scott McKenzie and "San Franciscan Nights" by The Animals. There was also "San Francisco Girls (Return of the Native)" by Fever Tree, a song about a guy who is ready to leave his girl to return to the city.
  • Fever Tree was from Houston. The only member of the band who had spent much time in San Francisco when they wrote this song was keyboard player Rob Landes, who had relatives in nearby Berkeley.
  • The song was written by the group's guitarist Michael Knust along with the husband-and-wife team of Scott and Vivian Holtzman, who produced the album.
  • The instrument at the beginning of this song is a Hohner Clavinet, which Rob Landes often played at their concerts. "It had actual strings in it and they were plucked like a harpsichord," he told Songfacts in 2017. "Each string was amplified. I wish I still had that instrument! I'm sure it is a collector's item by now."

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