"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:
“San Francisco is where gay fantasies come true, and the problem the city presents is whether, after all, we wanted these particular dreams to be fulfilled—or would we have preferred others? Did we know what price these dreams would exact? Did we anticipate the ways in which, vivid and continuous, they would unsuit us for the business of daily life? Or should our notion of daily life itself be transformed?”
—Edmund White (b. 1940)
“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)
“Ireland is where strange tales begin and happy endings are possible.”
—Charles Haughey (b. 1925)
“It is an odd thing, but every one who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“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)