Why “Save Me San Francisco” Is the Worst Song Ever Written

I don’t know if everyone in America has had the pleasure of listening to Train’s new single “Save Me San Francisco,” or if I’m just especially fortunate because I happen to live in the bay area. All I know is that every time it comes on the radio, I want to turn my car into oncoming traffic or at least find Pat Monohan wherever he is and run him down. It’s the most shameless attempt to create an anthem for a city that I’ve ever heard.

It’s like Monohan thought to himself, “Hey, Jay-Z is raking it in with his Empire State of Mind song, and Randy Newman has been cashing in on We Love L.A. for years. I should write a song for San Francisco and live the rest of my life off royalties whenever they inevitably play the hell out it there.”

So maybe my problem isn’t so much that Train’s song is shitty, it’s that the radio stations around my area have fallen for it. “OMG, you guys, it’s a song that says our city by name! How exciting is that??” Actually, no, my problem is with the song. I love Empire State of Mind. Jay-Z knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote that song, but at least he had the decency to make it good. Fucking Train has somehow made San Francisco even more unbearable now because this song has started to catch on. They’ve already started playing it at Giants games. It’s becoming a damn epidemic.

Let’s take a look at what makes this song so damn awful in the first place.

I used to love the Tenderloin
Until I made some tender coin
And then I met some ladies from Marin

Thank goodness we get to the name dropping right off the bat. At first I thought he was talking about meat in that first line, but oh no, he’s talking about the neighborhood in San Francisco. It’s basically the slums. He used to love it, but then he made some money and got the hell out of there to Marin, the county which just so happens to have the fifth highest per-capita income in the nation. So you’re saying you got rich and hightailed it out of that shit hole to yuppie central. Way to speak to the common man.

And can we talk about that first rhyme? “Hey, what’s something that rhymes with Tenderloin? Um… tender… COIN! Tender coin! Now we’re cookin’ with gas!” I’d call that lazy, but that’s just an insult to my people.

We took the highway to The One
Up the coast to catch some sun
That left me with these blisters on my skin

Oh, snap! He said “The One!” He’s one of us. Let’s buy this immediately because Train’s just like us! The insider name-dropping is already too pretentious to bear. And now it sounds like he’s pro skin cancer.

Don’t know what I was on
But I think it grows in Oregon,
So I kept on goin’ going on right through

Ooh, nice sly reference to smoking weed there, Pat. Now you can catch the stoner crowd from San Francisco, too. Doesn’t matter that most of them are too busy with their drum circle to actually listen to Train. As long as you make sure you’ve got the yuppie Marin pot-smoking demographic, you’re still good to go.

I drove into Seattle rain
Fell in love then missed the train
That could have took me right back home to you

Isn’t this supposed to be a song about San Francisco? Quick, let’s get back there, I think you’re starting to lose people. Just do some non-sensical rhymes and throw the city’s name in there.

CHORUS:
I’ve been high, I’ve been low
I’ve been yes and I’ve been oh, hell no!
I’ve been rock ‘n roll and disco
Won’t you save me San Francisco?

I know it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to thoroughly analyze the lyrics of the same guy who wrote Drops of Jupiter, but seriously, what the fuck does this mean? There’s no other explanation than he just started with “San Francisco” and worked backwards. “What goes with disco? Rock ‘n roll and disco? Well, looks like I’m working with opposites here. I’ve been high, I’ve been low…”

Why stop there? Come on, this is easy.

I’ve been hot, I’ve been cold
I’ve been bought and I’ve been sold

I’ve been black, I’ve been white
I’ve been wrong and I’ve been oh so right
(as if he wouldn’t rip of Michael Jackson)

I’ve been big, I’ve been small
I’ve been short and I’ve been tall
(wouldn’t put this past them either)

Basically, the shit isn’t hard to do. So he does some opposites and asks San Francisco to save him. From what? From polar opposites? Is this saying that San Francisco is just right in the middle. Come to San Francisco and be mediocre!

Every day so caffienated
I wish they were Golden Gated
Fillmore couldn’t feel more miles away

Durr, people in San Francisco drink a lot of coffee. Way to go on that one. And you wish your days were more Golden Gated? What the fuck does that even mean? How is that different from caffeinated? You just need to cram Golden Gate in there somehow. Admit it, Pat.

And gotta get The Fillmore in there. Excellent job with the word play. Fillmore and feel more? Genius. Just genius.

So wrap me up return to sender
Let’s forget this five-year bender
Take me to my city by the bay!

Talking about your city by the bay just makes me remember Journey’s Lights, and how they already did what you did, only without sucking.

I never knew all that i had
Now Alcatraz don’t sound so bad
At least they have a hella fine merlot

What? You love Alcatraz so much that being locked up in Alcatraz doesn’t sound so bad? And I really hate to break it to you, Pat, but Alcatraz wouldn’t have a Merlot. And even if they did, it wouldn’t be “hella” fine, because Merlot just sucks. Shut up.

If I could wish upon a star
I would hitch a cable car
To the place that I can always call my own!

Let’s see, Golden Gate Bridge, check. The Fillmore, check. Alcatraz, check. Cable cars…ooh, I need to get cable cars in there!

I’ve been high, I’ve been low
I’ve been yes and I’ve been oh, hell no!
I been rock ‘n roll and disco
Won’t you save me San Francisco?
I’ve been up, I’ve been down
I’ve been so damn lost since you’re not around
I been reggae and calypso
Won’t you save me San Francisco?

More additions to the chorus. How did I not think of that up and down one myself? Maybe Pat Monohan deserves a little more credit. Either him or his seven-year-old niece that he called up to help him write this song.

To tell you the truth
I miss everything, everything
It’s a wild, wild beautiful world
But there’s a wide eyed girl back there
And she means everything, everything

The one part of the song that doesn’t actually namedrop shit about San Francisco, and somehow manages to be the least terrible thing about the song. Imagine that.

I’ve been stop
I’ve been go
I’ve been yes and I’ve been oh, hell no!
I’ve been rock ‘n roll and disco
Won’t you save me San Francisco?
I’ve been up, I’ve been down
I’ve been so damn lost since you’re not around
I’ve been reggae and calypso
Won’t you save me San Francisco?

And with repetition of the last chorus, the song mercifully ends. I have to say that writing this is the first time I ever truly got to the end of the song without changing the radio station. It was not easy.

I don’t know what this accomplished. Nothing, I guess. It was just something that needed to be said. I’m all for writing an anthem that a city can stand behind, but hack work like this just makes me sick. It’s a half-hearted attempt from Train to overtake Journey as San Francisco’s band of choice and the fact that it’s getting airplay for whatever reason is beyond me.

I feel like I need to go listen to Rebecca Black’s “Friday” just to cleanse my palet of this awful song.

Ugh.