San Jose: You Know the Way
A classic song, a new marketing campaign, and a side trip to Yahoo
San Jose has engaged in a new marketing campaign and now they have gotten themselves a new theme song. It’s called ‘San Jose’ and it is performed by a New Zealander with the unlikely name of Grace Kelly.
Wait, I hear you saying. Doesn’t San Jose already have a theme song? Isn’t there something about a great big freeway, and having lots of friends and…
The song “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” has been the city’s unofficial theme for fifty years (it was released in 1968). Written by Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David it was recorded by Dionne Warwick and became a hit single in 1968. Ever since then, it’s been the song most associated with San Jose.
I mean, what would be the number two song associated with San Jose? It’s not as though people are breaking down the doors to write songs about California’s third-largest city, a sprawling mass that forms the heart and what passes for a soul of silicon valley? Being the subject of such an enormous hit song, it’s not likely that lightning will strike twice. Not unless you’re New York, or Chicago, or New Orleans, or San Jose’s nearby sister, L.A.
Does anyone really expect there to be another ode to Galveston? Another ‘By the Time I Get to…
