Words and music were composed by the group's members, Eric Burdon, Vic Briggs, John Weider, Barry Jenkins, and Danny McCulloch.
Billboard described the single as having an "off-beat opener" that "turns into a plaintive, meaningful ballad saluting the hot music city".
[4] The flipside of the UK version of this single was a song called "Gratefully Dead", another nod from the Animals to the San Francisco scene.
[6] But in fact, Burdon and his group had recently played in San Francisco during a rare 10-day stretch of exceptionally warm spring weather, which left a strong, if erroneous impression on them.
[citation needed] At a concert in Naperville, Illinois in 2010, Burdon said the song was written about an evening with Janis Joplin in San Francisco.