DISCOVERING THEIR MUSE
Great rock songs about Marin County
Marin County has long been a haunt for rock musicians, particularly newly wealthy ones, thanks to its proximity to the one-time countercultural hub of San Francisco. Legendary musicians like Bonnie Raitt and Sammy Hagar still call it home, and past residents include Van Morrison, Carlos Santana and the Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh. Marin studios like Sausalito's Record Plant, Nicasio's the Site and West Marin's Panoramic House have produced some of the biggest-selling and best rock albums of all time. Yet the wealth of songs inspired by Marin's natural beauty suggests artists are just as drawn to the spirit of the place itself. These four rock songs, all made by one-time or current Bay Area residents, reflect Marin County's strange magic in one way or another.
• David Crosby — “Tamalpais High (At About 3)”
The late countercultural icon and longtime Marin resident David Crosby knew exactly what he was doing when he gave this song from his 1971 solo album “If I Could Only Remember My Name” its title, which refers to the high school but also to something else. “It's not about getting high,” he told Rolling Stone in 2021, insisting instead it was about a girlfriend who went to Tamalpais High School and finished classes at 3 p.m. — yet the same year, he
told the Los Angeles Times that it's “more about being high on Mount Tamalpais than it is about the high school.” This kind of misdirection was characteristic for the wily and cantankerous Crosby, but so is the sweeping beauty of the song itself, stacked with harmonies to better capture the balmy feeling of a mid-afternoon in Mill Valley.
• Van Morrison — “Snow in San Anselmo”
Van Morrison made an innate connection between the rolling green landscapes of Marin County and the mythical Celtic dreamland of his imagination, the “haunts of ancient peace” in which so much of his music takes place. His albums from his `70s stay in Fairfax are filled with rapturous descriptions of the local landscape, and “Snow in San Anselmo” from 1973's “Hard Nose the Highway” was inspired by
a real snowfall in San Anselmo, on Dec. 7, 1972. “It was layin' on the ground,” Morrison sings in disbelief, as if its presence was some kind of miracle that confirmed the presence of a higher power.
• Otis Redding — “(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay”
Otis Redding's electrifying performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival introduced the Georgia soul singer to a