"San Francisco Is a Lonely Town" is a song written in 1969 by the Nashville songwriter Ben Peters. Two versions of the song charted in 1969 – one by Ben Peters himself (#46 country, Peters' only charting hit),^[1] and the single by Joe Simon, which reached #79 on the US pop charts, #29 on the R&B charts.^[2]

The novelist and songwriter Alice Randall reviewed Linda Martell's album Color Me Country in 2010, and wrote:

The second cut, the Ben Peters–penned "San Francisco Is a Lonely Town," is a variation on the Harlan Howard masterpiece "Streets of Baltimore." Here a young couple sets off on a Greyhound for San Francisco, only to discover the distractions of the big city dilute love. Peters, who wrote a signature song for country legend Charley Pride ("Kiss an Angel Good Morning"), captures the spunk and sorrow of the adventure—but more interestingly, Martell's performance captures a bit of San Francisco few have seen—the kids who arrived not in beat-up Volkswagens but on the bus; the kids who weren't white, who were brown; the kids who came not from Eastern cities, but from Southern towns. Linda Martell portrays just such a girl-woman convincingly.^[3]

Other versions of the song released in 1969 and after, were by:

• Roberta Sherwood (single)^[4]
• Mel Carter (single)^[5]
• Eddy Arnold on his album The Warmth of Eddy,^[6]
• Fred Hughes on his album Baby Boy,^[7]
• Charlie Rich on his album The Fabulous Charlie Rich,^[8] The Charlie Rich version was remixed by the French group Nouvelle Vague on the 2007 remix album Late Night Tales: Nouvelle Vague.^[9]
• O. C. Smith on his album O.C. Smith at Home.^[10]
• Linda Martell, the African-American country artist, recorded the song on her 1970 album Color Me Country.^[11]
• Vikki Carr put the tune on her 1971 album The Ways to Love a Man.^[12]
• Glen Campbell recorded it on his 1976 album Bloodline,^[13]
• Jimmy "Orion" Ellis on his 1979 album Sunrise.^[14]
• Nick Nixon, whose version reached #86 on the country charts in 1979.^[15]