"Let's Go to San Francisco" was written and recorded by John Carter and Ken Lewis, a songwriting team known as Carter & Lewis. The composition, psychedelic in nature, took vocal and instrumental inspiration from The Beach Boys. The name The Flower Pot Men was derived from the BBC children's show "Flower Pot Men", with the obvious psychedelic era puns on flower power and "pot" (cannabis). In the US, they were commonly deemed "The Flower Men" on radio airplay to avoid the drug reference.