Summer of Love
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The Summer of Love was a phrase given to the summer of 1967 to try to describe (personify) the feeling of being in San Francisco that summer, when the hippie movement came to full fruition.
The actual beginning of this "Summer" can be attributed to the Human Be-In that took place in Golden Gate Park on January 14 of that year. Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and the Jefferson Airplane all participated in the event, a celebration of hippie culture and values.
John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas took twenty minutes to write
- "If you're going to San Francisco,
- be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...
- If you come to San Francisco,
- Summertime will be a love-in there.'
The song was designed originally to promote the upcoming Monterey Pop Festival, in June. Scott McKenzie's cover of the song was released in May 1967 [1] (http://www.sfheart.com/Songs/index.html).
Later that summer, thousands of young people from around the nation flocked to the Haight-Ashbury district of the city to join in on a popularized version of the hippie experience.
"The Summer of Love", or more accurately, "the Second Summer of Love", is sometimes used (particularly in the UK) to refer to the summer of 1987 and the rise of Acid House music and rave culture.