As I get ready to head off to the homeland for nine glorious days, I thought it'd be nice to do a small addendum to this list. Because I'm sentimental and nostalgic and solipsistic!
"California Sun" - the Rivieras
For the longest time I only knew this because of Mohegan Sun adverts. That surfy guitar line! That surfy drumbeat! That surfy keyboard riff! Lyrics about how carefree and fun California is, and how that's where you belong. Yes it is!
You should maybe skip to 0:40 where the real bulk of this video starts. Dopey-cute Cali dudes walking around L.A. and being dopey as the song plays. Cute! (Though the blond one looks like an ex-boyfriend, but that's probably just cos all SoCal boys look like that)
"California Girls" - the Magnetic Fields
Apparently you can, um, listen to this here. It's an anti-California song! What is it doing here, you say? Well, part of the fun of being from California (and, even more so, Southern California, which basically means "Los Angeles") is dealing with people who hate you just because of where you're from. Yeah, we grew up with sun all the time and beaches whenever we wanted. This inspires a lot of hatred and condescension. I mean, just yesterday a Jersey kid and a NorCal kid ganged up on me to tell me that Los Angelenos are stupid! (Fair, sure, but I wouldn't say we're any stupider than any other big city) There's a kind of jealousy that becomes ugly, which this song so hilariously exposes, while also sounding beautiful and menacing--which, come to think of it, perfectly describes the California girls that the narrator wants to destroy in this song. Instant classic and totally vintage, and off the Magnetic Fields' forthcoming beaut Distortion.
"After The Glitter Fades" - Stevie Nicks
I pretty much can't top this description, which I will reproduce here:
Hell yeah to doing fat rails at some record producer's party up the canyon in Studio City, or maybe it was a real estate guy, and finding yourself alone on a balcony at four in the morning, the has-beens long retired to the bedrooms with the wannabes, and maybe a few stragglers sprawled on living room shag, too wasted or too desperate to know that for them the party ended weeks ago, with the Valley twinkling everywhere below, and knowing that love is only one fine star away. Hell yeah.
"All I Wanna Do" - Sheryl Crow
Oh come the fuck on now, really. She likes a good beer buzz in the morning. How are you gonna hate on a girl like that?!
"Late Night, Early Town" - Lloyd Cole
Leave it to Lloyd Cole to write some kinda didactic joyless song about staying up all night and partying. Although it can get depressing (see: "After The Glitter Fades" description!), so he has a point. This sounds almost like a parody of your classic OMG L.A. DEBAUCHERY LEAVES US SO EMPTY BUT INSPIRED. Who knows, it might be one! I guess we really are dumb! Still really pretty though. (If you want this song, holla)
"California Man" - Cheap Trick
Wherein, apparently, California men feel immortal and sadistic and unable to stop dancing when rock and roll is playing. Cool! Like The Red Shoes!
"California Sunset" - Neil Young
The great Canadian tradition of leaving frozen tundra and being in awe of the colors of the sky and the warmth and the vast openness of the West, which is really what America has always been about if you think about it. Bonus point for "Kiss another day goodbye," which is basically how it feels like there: time passes by so quickly, and what the hell have you done? Gotten stoned on the beach, duh. Ah, freshman year.
"California Here I Come" - Shocking Blue
Why do the foreigners get the mystique and mythos of California more than our fellow Americans? Mariska Veres just sounds fucking desperately entitled to make it hers. Oh hm, maybe that's why--conquering and taking anything in your path in order to achieve your bloodthirsty goals. Get outta the way, red/brown people!
"California Here I Come" - Al Jolson
This is pretty much the whole thing, isn't it? It's snowing, what the hell am I doing not in California? I've been lousy since leaving. So I'm coming back, get ready. It's also inspired one of my favorite dorky kid TV-watching moments:
And as a bonus, here's ABBA, being as drunk as I intend to be in the next nine days:
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