California and the West : Will San Diego Ever Find Its Song of Songs?

My day was made Tuesday, upon reading that San Diego is searching for its own city song. San Diego, city that never sleeps. San Diego, my kind of town. I left my heart in San Diego. No, wait. It was my wallet.

San Diego continues to be one of the truly outstanding cities in the greater metropolitan Tijuana area. The town deserves a tune. San Diego is marvelous, too marvelous for words. Many of us believe San Diego to be every bit as special and song-worthy as Galveston, Kalamazoo and Gary, Ind.

According to a spokesperson for the mayor there, San Diego is looking for “a song that is upbeat and positive.”

OK, that’s a fine start. A song that is downbeat and negative is not a real finger-snapper. Besides, there hasn’t been a good one since “Dead Man’s Curve.”

San Diego needs a song that says this is a city where anyone would be proud to be born . . . man, woman or panda.

San Diego needs a song that people can sing at ceremonies, at concerts, at conventions or at halftime when the score is Broncos 35, Chargers 0.

San Diego needs a song with an upbeat, positive message that everybody there can relate to . . . something like, oh, “I Hate L.A.”

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Many years ago in Michigan, the mayor of Detroit was determined to come up with a suitable theme song. There he was in Motown, heart and soul of rhythm and blues, without a song. It was as inappropriate as being in Beverly Hills in a Buick.

The only Detroit song any of Coleman Young’s advisors could remember was a forlorn ditty about “Dee-troit City,” sung by a guy who sounded as if he were on a back porch in Chattanooga with a jug of moonshine and his old hound dog.

Somebody from the mayor’s office eventually commissioned a new song and paid Sammy Davis Jr. to make a recording. It was called “Hello, Detroit,” and it took around 48 hours for most of Detroit to say goodbye to it.

So, San Diego shouldn’t sink too much time or effort into this. You can’t force a song down people’s throats . . . or rather, out of people’s throats.

You can’t make San Diego people sing about sunsets, any more than you can make Wichita people sing about linemen.

Furthermore, even if you do get a song of your own, don’t be afraid to tinker with the lyrics. “My Kind of Town” is a happy-go-lucky song that Chicago people are happy to sing. They just hate that stupid verse about the “union stockyards.” No other upbeat, positive song mentions stockyards.

Kansas City hogs the best songs. There’s one about everything being up to date there. There’s another about all the crazy little women there. I have met crazy little women from Cincinnati and Pittsburgh; how come nobody ever sings about THEM?

Poor old Indianapolis is the town that drives songwriters nuts. Nothing even rhymes with Indianapolis except little green apples.

The pop song “I Love L.A.” by Randy Newman is thought by some to be Los Angeles’ anthem. It isn’t. When you have an anthem, people should be able to memorize it. People here have been singing “I Love L.A.” at basketball games for 25 years, but the only words they can remember are: “We love it.”

Los Angeles could use a new song and we should all try to help. (As long as taxpayers don’t have to help pay for one.) San Diego is looking for a song right now, however, so it needs our help much more.

I’ve been working on it all day.

My first version went something like this: “I go, you go, we go, they go/To the town of San Diego/It is somewhere to the south of/Fullerton and Mission Viejo.”

But it failed to capture the essence of San Diego that a good lyric should. Mine was more like a songwriting Thomas Guide.

Then I began a second attempt, but the only thing I could think of that rhymed with Diego was “Leg-O.”

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City Council members will ultimately select San Diego’s official song. They will undoubtedly receive a huge pile of submissions, and will spend many a council meeting, sitting by the old piano.

They want a tune that is as recognizable as San Francisco’s or New York’s, something for the tourists to hum.

Trouble is, San Francisco is instantly identifiable with bridges and little cable cars that climb halfway to the stars. Whereas San Diego is instantly identifiable with . . . what?

It’s not even a city that never sleeps. I have been to San Diego. It sleeps.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: [email protected]