Going to California

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"Going to California"
"Going to California" cover
Song by Led Zeppelin
from the album (Led Zeppelin IV)
Released November 8, 1971
Recorded December 1970 – March 1971
Genre Folk rock
Length 3:31
Label Atlantic Records
Writer(s) Page/Plant
Producer(s) Jimmy Page
(Led Zeppelin IV) track listing
"Four Sticks"
(6)		 "Going to California"
(7)		 "When the Levee Breaks"
(8)

"Going to California" is the penultimate song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin on their fourth album, released in 1971. The song's wistful folk-style sound, with Robert Plant on lead vocals, acoustic guitar by Jimmy Page and mandolin by John Paul Jones, contrasts with the heavy electric-amplified rock on several of the album's other tracks.

Led Zeppelin playing "Going to California" at Earls Court Exhibition Centre, 1975
Led Zeppelin playing "Going to California" at Earls Court Exhibition Centre, 1975

The song is reportedly about singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell, with whom Plant and Page were both infatuated. Plant sings "They say she plays guitar/and cries and sings". In live performances of the song, Plant would often say the name "Joni" after this stanza:

“
To find a Queen without a King,
They say she plays guitar and cries, and she sings
Joni
Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn,
Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born.
Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.
 ”

The main vocal melody inspired Pearl Jam's 1998 song "Given to Fly". Also, Fuel did a remake of this song on their album Something Like Human. Aaron Lewis of Staind covered this song in a charity solo show in his old high school, Longmeadow High (link to the performance).

[edit] Trivia

  • The original title was "Guide To California."
  • This started as a song about earthquakes, but developed into a song about the search for a woman.
  • When Page, an engineer, and their manager flew to Los Angeles to mix the track, there was an earthquake near San Diego.
  • At Led Zeppelin concerts the band performed this song during their acoustic sets.
  • This came from a poem Jimmy Page wrote on a notebook. He found it awhile later and branched off from there.
  • This was the 3,000,000th song played on WBLM, a radio station based in Portland, Maine

[edit] External links

[edit] Sources

  • Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused: The Stories Behind Every Song, by Chris Welch, ISBN 1-56025-818-7
  • The Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin, by Dave Lewis, ISBN 0-7119-3528-9
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