San Francisco LYRICS
San Francisco
we packed our bags and hit the road
we headed north up to san francisco
loaded up with things to sell and things to barter
we picked up barbara who was off to meet her father
we fell asleep inside a poster of the 60s
mission kids and stick up kids the dandified insincere
we took a walk across the golden bridge on sunday
136 ghosts waited with barbara’s father silence
and she asked him where were you when haight street burned to the ground
why were there wars just so we could get down
and he told us
forgive yourselves for what humans have done
but never deny yourself a warm gun
and we all turned our heads to the earth
and no one said a single word
and we woke up woke up
barbara’s father had vanished
so we headed home with our own damn answers tucked under our arm
it started off as a whisper
then it got thicker
we packed our bags and hit the road
we headed north up to san francisco
a scream from machines the american dream
reinvented bent its been reflected
a voice from the cracks of all of our picture perfect scene
and she asked him where were you when haight st burned to the ground
why were there wars just so we could get down
and he told us
forgive yourselves for what humans have done
but never deny yourself a warm gun
and we all turned our heads to the earth
and no one said a single word
and we woke up woke up
barbara’s father had vanished
so we headed home with our own damn answers tucked under our arm
I’m not sure if it was me or Derek that came up with that first line about going to SF. We had been working with his guitar lick and had just added the ‘bendy’ sound when someone, in the dead of the night, sneaked some vocals in there. It was a subtle gesture, a nod to a few months earlier, on an actual trip to San Francisco where the first ideas of Barbara started swirling in drunken minds. Yeah, we sang rap songs in a cab after a Miike Snow show. The cabbie laughed his ass off. The rest of the lyrics were this really intricate story that Derek and I kept bouncing lines back and forth. In the end, sometimes Derek twists an idea into a poem and I no longer know if I understand the story. But now I think this song truly means something different to everyone that hears it, including us.
-Frank
Barbara
