Friday not-random Ten: ten favorite songs about California

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I’ve been so pleased by the way California bucked national trends this week; while much of the nation turned right, the great and good Golden State turned left. The campaigns I cared most about turned out as I had hoped, and if Jerry McNerney can hold on to his congressional seat in Northern California (he represents the land on which my family’s ranch is located and currently leads by a few hundred votes pending a recount), then every cause for which I worked or donated will have triumphed. (And also parenthetically, well done Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts and New York — some flashes of progressive defiance in your fine states as well. The coasts and Rocky Mountain High aren’t folding over to Tea Party mania.)

So, not a “random” ten at all, but ten of my favorite songs with California in the title. And nothing from the Beach Boys, the Eagles, or the Mamas and Papas (the most obvious choices). The order is random — it turns out I have eighteen songs with California in the title on my iTunes!

Feel free to add your favorites in the comments!

1. “King of California”, Dave Alvin
2. “California Love”, 2Pac
3. “California Stars”, Billy Bragg and Wilco
4. “California”, Joni Mitchell
5. “California Cotton Fields”, Gram Parsons
6. “It Never Rains in Southern California”, Albert Hammond
7. “California Uber Alles”, Dead Kennedys
8. “California Sun”, Ramones
9. “California Sky”, Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash
10. “Going to California”, Led Zeppelin

Bonus Track: “Hail to California” (The alma mater of the University of California, Berkeley)

0 thoughts on “Friday not-random Ten: ten favorite songs about California”

  2. John Cowan does a really nice live cover of Going to California (he calls it “an old English folk song from the 20th century” in the intro) – at least one performance is in the public domain and available on archive.org

    Also, Jimmy Buffett’s California Promises.

  3. I’ve been so pleased by the way California bucked national trends this week; while much of the nation turned right, the great and good Golden State turned left.

    Not so much turned left as got left. Your conservatives are leaving/have left; your liberals have stayed. The destination for new beginnings has turned into a retirement home for old liberals.

  4. Actually, I think our population is younger than the US average. And we still have plenty of crotchety right-wing white folks. We keep them away from the seaside, but they abound amidst the tumbleweeds of Kern County.

  5. It’s a little ironic that you would pick an old punk song that bashes Jerry Brown for such an occasion.

  6. Brill, I want to talk to someone who cryofreezed their brain in 1975 and just woke up, so that I can tell them that the President is a black guy but that Jerry Brown is still governor of California.

  8. Immigration is going to keep CA in the black for a long, long time. If they could get their tax base in order, it’d be a well-positioned state in a lot of ways.

  9. “(And also parenthetically, well done Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts and New York — some flashes of progressive defiance in your fine states as well.”

    I don’t know about those other states, but here in Colorado it was a narrow race for the Senate and only won by a percentage point. As for the governor, I think McInnis may have given Hickenloper a run for his money, but Hickenlooper never had time to try to vie with McInnis. The flap about plagiarism exploded and McInnis’ campaign imploded.

    Tancredo would not have entered the race at all but with two badly-damaged candidates….

    As far as the tea party goes the movement was/is just angry at anybody who smelled like an insider.

    With circumstances like this the unexpected happens. A lot of people here are still angry and many are hoping the angry right decides to fix the legislature, which needs fixing.

  10. What I liked about Colorado was that it was one of the states where the gender gap sealed the deal — Bennet’s win came on the votes of women, who supported him by a wide margin, while Buck (who opposed abortion rights in all circumstances) carried the votes of Colorado men. I am sorry about some of your House races (John Salazar was a decent guy, and he represented my favorite part of the Centennial State), but Colorado was the only state not bordering on an ocean where the GOP didn’t win at least one of the two big (senate plus governor) races. So well done. Makes me feel better about spending money in Denver next week.

  11. It’s true that Bennet and his allies spent millions during the final three weeks with ads narrowly targeted to undecided unaffiliated women voters. The ads attempted and obviously succeeded in making Buck unacceptable. The ads moved the debate from the economy and spending to abortion and other social issues with those voters.

    I don’t think it was so well done. For Colorado Democrats, once Obama endorsed Bennet prior to our Primary Vote..this race was no longer about either Bennet or Romanoff, but about a President who is the leader of our Democratic Party stealing our senate nomination for his candidate.

    If you care about honest elections you know, that to have honest elections, we first must have an honest primary.

    Since Obama, the DNC, the DSCC, Organizing For America and our State Democratic Party Officers conspired to create this situation, they will try to continue to do this in the future, and will do nothing to help US stop it. That is one reason why I feel it was not so well done.

    I’m moderate and could/can handle Republicans for one term if the upside is getting rid of some of the corruption in our Democratic Party.