by Kevin Burton
Texas has its outsized pretentions, but California for most of a century was considered the American promised land. This was reflected throughout popular culture, including in music.
So there is no shortage of songs we could use to represent the Golden State in our summer rock and roll road trip Coast To Coast. I have chosen “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and the Papas, to do the job.
As darkness defines a lack of light so California Dreamin’ reflects life outside of California. It’s all grey skies and brown leaves and cold. Warmth can be found in Arizona, or Mississippi or any number of other places. But for many Americans California was the stuff of dreams.
John and Michelle Phillips wrote the song in 1963 and released it as a single for the Mamas and the Papas in 1965. The lyrics express the narrator’s longing for the warmth of Los Angeles during a cold winter in New York City.
“California Dreamin’” became a signpost of the California sound heralding the arrival of the nascent counterculture era,” according to the song’s Wikipedia page.
In a 2002 interview with National Public Radio, Michelle Phillips explained how this song came about:
It was 1963, and she was newly married to John. They were living in New York City, which was having a particularly cold winter, at least by Michelle’s standards as she was from sunny California. John would walk around the apartment at night working out tunes, and one morning brought thefirst verse of the song to Michelle. It was a songabout longing to be in another place, and it was inspired by Michelle’s homesickness.
Michelle enjoyed visiting churches, and a few days before, she and John visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which inspired the second verse(“Stopped into a church…”). John hated the verse, as he was turned off to churches by unpleasant memories of parochial school, but he couldn’t think of anything better so he left it in.
“This is a rare pop song that contains a flute solo,” According to SongFacts. “Even more surprising, it’s an alto flute, which is larger than a regular flute and plays in a lower register. A jazz player named Bud Shank was brought to the session to play it.”
“Doug Thompson tells this story: ‘Denny Doherty once told me that when they were recording that song, they wanted a solo, but didn’t want the usual guitar solo. John Phillips walked out into the hall of the Hollywood recording studio they were at and Bud Shank was in that hallway as well. John grabbed him and brought him into the studio. Shank listened to the hole he was supposed to fill and nailed it on the first take.”
That flute solo embodies the song’s longing for warmer, better times. The song would not be the same with a guitar solo.
“The single was released in late 1965 but was not an immediate breakthrough,” according to Wikipedia. “After gaining little attention in Los Angeles, a radio station in Boston was the catalyst to break the song nationwide. After making its chart debut in January 1966, the song peaked at No. 4 in March on the Billboard Hot 100. Billboard described the song as having “a fascinating new sound with well written commercial material.”
“When the group was just starting out in 1965, their friend Barry McGuire helped them get a contract with his record label, Dunhill Records,” according to SongFacts. “McGuire recorded the first version of the song with The Mamas & the Papas as his backing band and a harmonica solo instead of a flute. It was going to be the follow-up single to his hit, “Eve Of Destruction.”
“The Mamas & The Papas then decided to record it on their own, with Denny Doherty singing lead, and some chord changes he came up with after consulting session guitarist, P.F. Sloan,
“John (Phillips) was very nervous. Nobody particularly liked the song, and to be honest with you, ‘California Dreamin’ was maybe three or four chords,” Sloan told SongFacts. “I added the ‘Walk – Don’t Run’ Ventures guitar riffs for that ‘da da da da da da.’ That was all creative work inside the studio when I heard them singing on mic. I had recorded them with Barry McGuire on his second album, so I knew how good they were.”
“McGuire’s original vocal can be briefly heard on the left channel at the beginning of the record, having not been completely erased.”
“In their 1967 song “Creeque Alley,” The Mamas & The Papas gave a history of the band and explained what happened when they did come to California.”
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