Scott McKenzie - Twelve Thirty [HD]

Scott McKenzie sings 'Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon)' from his 1967 Ode album 'The Voice Of Scott McKenzie'. This song was written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas. Phillips had been a friend of McKenzie's from a young age and the two had earlier recorded folk records together in the group The Journeymen. Notes below are adapted from material in Wikipedia. The song lyrics are listed below.

[Vinyl/Lyrics/38-Images/WAV]

The song was written by Phillips shortly after the The Mamas and the Papas relocated to Southern California in 1965 and often cited as the band's last great single. Jim Ward of Rolling Stone said "Twelve Thirty" was "probably the best realized song the group has recorded." It was inspired by Laurel Canyon, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In the song, the writer says he used to live in "dark and dirty" New York, where a broken clock on a church steeple was stuck at 12:30. He compares this period to being in "the Canyon" (generally accepted to refer to Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, home to many show business types and where Phillips occasionally resided). A popular interpretation is that girl "groupies" would party into the night at the homes of show business types in the canyon and wander home the next morning, passing the house and engaging the songwriter in conversation as they went. Laurel Canyon is a neighborhood and canyon located in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, in the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles. The Laurel Canyon neighborhood centers on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and has houses lining one side of this main street most of the way up to Mulholland Drive. There are many side roads that branch off the main canyon, but most are not through streets, reinforcing the self-contained nature of the neighborhood.

The video shows scenes from Laurel Canyon, Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Topanga Canyon (also in the Santa Monica Mountains region), Topanga Canyon Boulevard and the greater Los Angeles area.


Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon)

Singer - Scott McKenzie

I used to live in New York City
Everything there was dark and dirty
Outside my window was a steeple
With a clock that always said twelve-thirty

Young girls are coming to the canyon
And in the mornings I can see them walking
I can no longer keep my blinds drawn
And I can't keep myself from talking

At first so strange to feel so friendly
To say good morning and really mean it
To feel these changes happening in me
And not to notice till I feel it

Cloudy waters cast no reflection
Images of beauty lie there stagnant
Vibrations bounce in no direction
But lie there shattered into fragments

Young girls are coming to the canyon
And in the morning I can see them walking
I can no longer keep my blinds drawn
And I can't keep myself from talking
Talking, talking

Songwriter: John Phillips

© Universal Music Publishing Group

[Lyrics from LyricFind]