Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)

The song was inspired by Laurel Canyon, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.[5] In the song, the writer says he used to live in "dark and dirty" New York City, where a broken clock on a church steeple was stuck at 12:30. John and Michelle had a difficult marital relationship then,[6] and he compares this period to being in "the Canyon" (generally accepted to refer to Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, home to many show business types and where Phillips occasionally resided). A popular interpretation[7] is that girl "groupies" would party into the night at the homes of show business types in the canyon and wander home the next morning, passing the house and engaging the songwriter in conversation as they went. The song fades out during a repeat of the final chorus.

With the lasting cultural resonance of "Twelve Thirty", there is analysis in lay discourse, and appropriation of meaning and metaphor with reference to epiphany or lifting of depression.[8][9] In celebration of its popularity, the conclusion of its variety show performance included a question on its spirituality.[10] Besides the literal Laurel Canyon reference, the song title calls up another literal reference, the dissonant metaphor of a broken tower clock in a church steeple close to John Phillips' home in New York City[11] - churches do not commonly tell us the time of day, but do post scripture by chapter and verse. An uncommon steeple clock, stuck at 12:30 (hour hand to heaven, minute hand to earth) makes an esoteric and perhaps unconscious cultural reference to love of God in Mark 12:30,[12] which says "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart... ...this is the first commandment." The melody and lyrics trace a transformation from the grey gloom of New York City to the joyful sunlight of Laurel Canyon in California, from metaphorical darkness to light, coherent with an awakening from grief into greater love and fellowship. This otherwise lyrical nonsense rhyme of twelve-thirty connects a literal arrest of the clockworks in the dark and dirty city, the brightening warmth of loving God, with Phillip's renewed artistic creativity in the Canyon.