The Mama's & the Papa's - California Dreamin'
I'd be safe and warm if I was in LA.
Album: If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears [debut album]
Recorded: Los Angeles, California
Genre: Pop, Sunshine Pop, California Sound
Album Release: February 28th 1966
Single Release: December 8th 1965 [2nd single]
Length: 2:37
Producer: Lou Adler
Vocalist: Denny Doherty
Label: Dunhill Records
Official Audio
Live [miming]
Charts, Streams & Sales
Canada (singles): #3
France (singles): certified gold
Germany (singles): certified gold
UK (singles): 3x platinum
USA (albums): #1
USA (singles): #4 [3x platinum]
Spotify: 917,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 700,000,000 +
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2021): #420
Credits
Acoustic guitar [x2], bass, drums, flute, keyboards, percussion
Details
- California girl Michelle Phillips was homesick living in a cold, autumnal New York when her husband glanced upon her misery and became inspired to write 'California Dreamin'. It's about wanting to go home, to be in the sun on the other side of the country, far away from the cold, wet rain of the Big Apple.
- Notable acts to cover the 'California Dreamin'' include The Beach Boys, Bobby Womack, Nancy Sinatra & The Carpenters. Although John and Michelle Phillips, both members of The Mama's and the Papa's, wrote the song their version is also a cover. Barry McGuire sang the original in 1963.
- The sixties was a time of social upheaval that saw huge political and cultural changes sweep the western world. By 1965, one in every four married women in America had used the contraceptive pill, 'California Dreamin'' came out the same year. With sex no longer tied so closely to reproduction a sexual, as well as a cultural revolution would follow and it was spearheaded by the anti-establishment music of bands like The Mama's and the Papa's. The era of change began in the political sphere with Kennedy but it was culture, in the form of music and film, that took it into the hearts and minds of teenagers around the world.
The California Sound of such bands as The Beach Boys came to typify a certain kind of surf and sand soaked counter-culture which became prominent on America's west coast in the second half of the sixties. California was thought of as a kind of Shangri-La, where anyone could go to escape the doldrums of everyday life. All you had to do was get in a car and drive west until you saw the ocean. It didn't even have to be your car.
In Hollywood, you could see your name up in bright lights. In San Francisco, you could spend your days on the beach, listening to music and getting high. Of course, the reality was more complex but it was the idea of California that was important to young people. It didn't last. The hippies of the sixties eventually became the yuppies of the eighties but, for a while at least, it was glorious. - The flute solo came from the bands reluctance to use a more traditional guitar and was stumbled upon largely by chance. Jazz musician Bud Shank was in the same studio while The Mama's & the Papa's were making 'California Dreamin'' and was pulled into the session. He heard the solo gap, improvised his part and recorded it perfectly in just one take.
Artwork
