Actually, baseball season starts Monday and as such, this is the time of year when I become most homesick for "my city by the bay"--San Francisco. I've been a Giants fan since 1967, and my family left the Bay Area for the heartland in 1973. As you might have surmised, there have been an awful lot of homesick Opening Days over the course of my life.
Arguably the most beautiful city in America (the world?), San Francisco didn't really need to be immortalized with a song, but Tony Bennett sure added a little luster with this gorgeous ballad (written by, oddly enough, a couple of San Franciscans living in New York and missing their home). The songwriting duo, George Cory and Douglass Cross, never had another hit but they didn't need one. (There's a nice tour tutorial of their song here.)
"I Left My Heart in San Francisco" was actually released in 1962 as the b-side to "Once Upon a Time" (no clue) which went nowhere fast but back in the day dee-jays would on occasion play a single's flip-side (you have to be of a certain age....)--and as they did with this one, turned it into Tony Bennett's signature song, which he's still singing to this day. Released on his appropriately titled album, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, it reached #19 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100. Featuring a twinkling piano and Bennett's heartfelt (not bad for a native New Yorker) vocals, the song manages to capture the essence of the city in just under three minutes--no easy task.
Just so you know, you don't have to be a native of San Francisco to appreciate it, but it probably helps.
And even after all these years, ..."high on a hill, it calls to me..."
Enjoy:
Peace,
emaycee
No comments:
Post a Comment