The Summer of Love: More Than Just Hippies and Awesome Music

If You’re Going to San Francisco

Many of the travelers came for the Monterey Pop Festival, which happened to be the world’s first such major event. You know Scott McKenzie’s hit single San Francisco? (“If you’re goinggggg to Sannn Frannnnncisco…”) Well, that song was actually intended to promote the pop festival. The tune even became the Summer of Love anthem, reaching No. 4 in the U.S. charts and No. 1 in Britain.

One woman in a crowd of people who are watching a pop concert, throwing flowers towards the stage

Monterey Pop Festival. Source: Shutterstock

During the early 60s, a new generation of bohemians began, which was unofficially the Beat Generation of poets and writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. It all really started, though, in January of 1967, with the Human Be-In rally in San Francisco. A gathering of Beat Generation speakers and poets stood in Golden Gate Park to celebrate some new ideas…