California Dreamin’

I chose to discuss in my E-Book about one of the most beautiful songs in the 60’s, “California Dreamin'”, who was made by the great band “The mamas & The Papas”. personally, this is one of my favourite songs, and even in my “Spotify” app in my phone, it was ranked very high in the rank of the most played song in my playlist in 2020.

California Dreamin’ Lyrics

The story behind the song’s writing

The song was written in 1963 by 2 members of ‘The Mamas & The Papas’: John Phillips and his second wife Michelle Phillips. They married in 1962 and lived in New York. Michelle was known by her strong desire and longing to live in Claifornia. One night in the cold winter, John dreamed about the song and woke Michelle up to help him write it. They worked all night and already in the morning they finished its first verse.

In his dream, John mentions how “all the leaves are brown and the sky is gray”, it’s assumed that he means New York. Also, he mentions that if he didn’t tell “her” (his partner, Michelle) he could leave today. We can see that this song is a dreamy love ballad to california and its warmer climate and a comfortable life, while criticizing New York’s gray “winter days”.

The late success of the song

Two years after the song’s writing, in 1965, The Mamas & The Papas finally recorded it by the help of the singer Barry Mcguire that got them a contract in ‘Dunhill Records’. However, the breakthrough didn’t hurry to show. The song didn’t got a big attention in Los Angeles, but after a year a radio station in Boston played the song a lot and it was spread to all over the contry. Beacause of it, the success of “California Dreamin'” was incredible. It reached No. 4 in 2 of the best music magazines in USA, “Billboard Hot 100” for 17 weeks and “CashBox” for 20 weeks in 1966, and was chosen No. 1 in “CashBox”‘s survey for the best song in 1966.

The song continued to be very successful over the years, until today. Besides being No. 89 in the 500 bests songs of all time of “Rolling Stone” magazine and being used in the soundtrack of the film “Chungking Express”, many famous artists decided to record a cover song inspired by “California Dreamin'”. My favourite cover was made by my No. 2 favourite band, “America” (the best band is “Queen”, and there is no doubt about it 😉 ). Their verse to the song was released in 1979. Another 3 great covers, 3 by many, were made by “The Beach Boys” in 1986, the australian singer Sia in 2015 for the film “San Andreas” and the last one of them, by the German DJ “Freischwimmer”, that released a house version of the song which got the No. 1 hit in the “Billboard Dance Club Songs” in 2016.

Bibliography

“Califonia Dreamin’ song facts”, songfacts.com. Available:

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-mamas-the-papas/california-dreamin

“Story of a song – Califirnia Dreamin'”, storyofsong.com. Available: https://storyofsong.com/story/california-dreamin/

“6 things you never knew about The Mamas & The Papas song ‘California Dreamin””, MeTV, December 17, 2019. Available:

https://www.metv.com/lists/6-things-you-never-knew-about-the-mamas-and-the-papas-song-california-dreamin