It seemed like everything was in
readiness. We had done what had been
asked: We wrote the song, recorded it
and were all ready to present it. But
then, everything went south—actually,
to San Francisco. The day before the
song’s official designation, the San
Francisco Chronicle published the story,
and that changed everything.
From out of nowhere, every songwriter
and his mother cried foul. “Wait a
minute,” they cried. “Give me a chance
to write a song. My mother wrote a
song. Why don’t you consider hers?
What kind of backroom sweetheart
deal is this?” Who knew there would be
such interest?
The Golden Gate Bridge Board of
Directors (the Bridge Board) stepped
back from their request, and the
announcement was put on hold. Not
wanting to inflame public sentiment or
create needless conflict, they came up
with a solution they thought was fair.
“We’ll give everyone a certificate, thank
them for their submission and choose
no formal song.”
That didn’t strike us as fair. After all, we
had done what we had been asked to
do. We had not only written the song,
but had financed the recording and the
video ourselves, and presented them
with a final product. And now this?
Although Bridge Board members are
truly dedicated public servants, they’re
not in the business of choosing the
next “American Idol.” They have an
American icon to oversee, and they just
wanted this whole thing to go away.
But, due to my broad background and
experience, including politics, running
for public office, serving as an aide
to Dianne Feinstein, going through a
local CORO Public Affairs Fellowship
program, being an ABC radio talk show
host and a San Francisco Examiner and
independent newspaper writer, I knew
how to lobby and apply pressure to
sway public opinion. To this day, I’m
proud of the full-court public relations
and lobbying campaign we pulled off.
We were in the New York Times
Magazine, the Wall Street Journal,
the San Francisco Chronicle, the Marin
Independent Journal, editorials in the
San Francisco Independent, and KCBS,
KTVU, KRON and KPIX.
After that, Mayor Willie Brown
proclaimed it San Francisco’s official
bridge song. We received a host of
supportive letters from Senator Dianne
Feinstein, the San Francisco Giants, the
director of the San Francisco Convention
and Visitors Bureau, the Hotel Council
of San Francisco, then State Senator
Quentin Kopp, former city deputy
attorney and current San Francisco
Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice
President of Public Policy Jim Lazarus
and many others.
In the end, our support was
overwhelming. The Bridge Board
took notice, reversed its position and
stood by its original offer. Little did
we know that our problems were just
beginning—there can be just as many
challenges with success as with failure.
With the lavish attention came an
inflated sense of self. My beloved late
songwriting collaborator hired a law
firm to negotiate a final deal with the
Bridge Board, and those negotiations
dragged on for more than a year. The
result: a slightly better deal than we
were originally offered, but the loss
of a full year’s momentum, and most
importantly, what I perceived as an
understandable loss of good will from
the Bridge Board.
It took a full decade to be reunited with
the bridge “family.” For the bridge’s
70th birthday, my wife Meredith
produced and I re-recorded the song
at Michael B. Sutton’s studios in Los
Angeles with a fresh arrangement. In
collaboration with Sutton, we had a
documentary produced on the history
of the bridge. We repackaged the two
together with liner notes by California
state librarian and historian Kevin Starr,
who wrote, “The bridge. The song. The
film! Noah Griffin and friends have
added new luster to our pantheon on
the Pacific.” We were invited to a small
70th anniversary luncheon hosted by
the Bridge Board where I performed the
song.
On the occasion of the bridge’s 75th
anniversary, Kevin Starr mentions the
song in his bestselling masterpiece,
The Golden Gate: The Life and Times
of America’s Greatest Bridge. He
writes: “The sense of the bridge as a
recognized part of the permanent life
of Bay Area life pervades the effort
of the Bay Area songwriting team
of Bob Voss and Noah Griffin, whose
song ‘‘The Bridge Golden Gate” (1997),
suggests the bridge as an easy available
source of continuity and comfort for
Bay Area residents in one or another
stages of life’s journey.”
On that exact anniversary, May 27,
2002, I interviewed Kevin Starr on the
stage of the Throckmorton Theatre. At
the invitation of Bob Stafford, Kevin
and I further teamed up to participate
in a bridge celebration hosted by the
historic Pacific-Union Club atop Nob
Hill.
The city did throw a huge 75th
anniversary bash befitting, along
with the cable cars, one of the two
most recognized symbols in the
world, the Golden Gate Bridge.
Although I requested that the song be
included, nowhere in the city’s official
celebratory festivities was it heard.
Flash forward five years. The bridge’s
80th anniversary is coming up but
strictly under the radar. No bells. No
whistles. No nothing. But for the 80th
birthday, we are re-releasing the song
with the documentary and the Kevin
Starr interview.
With Tony Bennett now being 90, “I
Left My Heart in San Francisco” has
an unshakeable place in the hearts
and minds of locals and fans around
the world. Perhaps it’s time for a new
song to take its place alongside the
city’s official song. After all, it took 10
years after it was written for Bennett’s
song to catch on; at a 20-year interval,
double my dues have been paid.
In a special ceremony the Marin Board
of Supervisors honored “The Bridge
Golden Gate.” Orphaned no more.
MA&C
MARIN ARTS & CULTURE 19