"Fake Tales of San Francisco" is a song by English indie rock band Arctic Monkeys originally released on the band's first EP Five Minutes with Arctic Monkeys in May 2005. After being featured on the band's debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, the song was released as a radio only single in the United States instead of "Leave Before the Lights Come On", which was released there at the end of October. The song was also released in the Netherlands, where it reached number 31 on the Dutch Singles Chart. The song was popular on alternative rock radio in the U.S. in late 2006, but ultimately did not chart on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart.
The song has been one of the band's signature tracks, with its popularity as the band's first recorded track. The song derides a fictional South Yorkshire band for taking its inspiration from the USA while never having been there, with lyrics such as "I'd love to tell you all my problem / You're not from New York City, you're from Rotherham", and "He talks of San Francisco, he's from Hunter's Bar". The song's title, however, has made it a fan favorite in the United States.
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Famous quotes containing the words san francisco, fake, tales, san and/or francisco:
“Today, San Francisco has experienced a double tragedy of incredible proportions. As acting mayor, I order an immediate state of mourning in our city. The city and county of San Francisco must and will pull itself together at this time. We will carry on as best as we possibly can.... I think we all have to share the same sense of shame and the same sense of outrage.”
—Dianne Feinstein (b. 1933)
“Kitsch is the daily art of our time, as the vase or the hymn was for earlier generations. For the sensibility it has that arbitrariness and importance which works take on when they are no longer noticeable elements of the environment. In America kitsch is Nature. The Rocky Mountains have resembled fake art for a century.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)
“The very nursery tales of this generation were the nursery tales of primeval races. They migrate from east to west, and again from west to east; now expanded into the “tale divine” of bards, now shrunk into a popular rhyme.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Today, San Francisco has experienced a double tragedy of incredible proportions. As acting mayor, I order an immediate state of mourning in our city. The city and county of San Francisco must and will pull itself together at this time. We will carry on as best as we possibly can.... I think we all have to share the same sense of shame and the same sense of outrage.”
—Dianne Feinstein (b. 1933)
“Swan/Mary Rutledge: Oh no, no. I’m not running away. I came here to get something, and I’m going to get it.
Col. Cobb: Yes, but San Francisco is no place for a woman.
Swan: Why not? I’m not afraid. I like the fog. I like this new world. I like the noise of something happening.... I’m tired of dreaming, Colonel Cobb. I’m staying. I’m staying and holding out my hands for gold—bright, yellow gold.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)