California in Twelve Songs

Soundtrack of a road trip

Last time we were on Palomar Mountain, about to head down to Coachella Valley. Would you like to ride along? There’s a soundtrack!

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I came to California through music, by which I mean to say that it was music that taught me that California was a place with its own culture, distinct from, say, the Wild West, or New York, or just America, that we in England knew from the movies.

America

One of the distinctive features of American music that fascinated me back then was the geographic specificity of the lyrics. Our town names just didn’t lend themselves to this lyrical treatment. Warrington Lineman, By the Time She Gets to Portsmouth, and Twenty-Four Hours from Tamworth just wouldn’t have the same ring. I had never seen the places in these songs—Wichita, Phoenix, Tulsa—so my imagination ran wild on how they might be. An opportunity to ground-truth some of my visions came in 1984 (that should have been a clue!) on my first visit to the US, to New York and New Jersey.

My first view of The City was at sunset from a helicopter between JFK and Newark airports. It did not disappoint. That softened me up for sure. And then my colleague Kathy and her husband Charlie offered to take me to Washington DC for the weekend. Friday evening, as they wedged me in the back of their Celica coupe and drove off down the New Jersey Turnpike, Kathy put this cassette in the player.

"Kathy, I'm lost", I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America

Simon & Garfunkel, America

That's when I knew I’d be moving.

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Amelia

There’s something about California. As we drive around the state, there’s a soundtrack playing in my head, with a song for every town.

Coachella Valley is a desert, and there are so many desert songs: A Horse with no Name; Hotel California, of course; but when I’m lying by the pool at our friends’ place (sorry, someone has to do it, it might as well be me), staring up at the desert sky, it’s Joni Mitchell’s Amelia that comes to me:

I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
Like the hexagram of the heavens
Like the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

Joni Mitchell, Amelia

We didn’t leave the gated community for three days, except on foot through the golf course to hike up into bighorn territory. Didn’t see any. Did see a cougar though; well, a guy in a WSU T-shirt.

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Big-Eyed Beans from Venus

On the last day, with the temperature due to hit 103, and the festival crowds arriving, we left, headed west towards Morro Bay on California's Central Coast. To avoid traffic, we went the back way, bypassing LA (Woman), Venice (Bitch), and Santa Monica (Pink Pony Club). Our route took us through Antelope Valley, the western tip of the Mojave Desert and home to many Joshua Trees.

There’s something slightly surreal about Antelope Valley. It’s named for the herds of pronghorn that used to graze there. Half were lost in the winters of 1882-5, starved to death as they refused to cross the railroad tracks that lay across their migration route. I sense their ghosts. It’s nicknamed Aerospace Valley now, home to Edwards Airforce Base and supporting industries.

When I learned that Frank Zappa and Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, had attended Lancaster High School—together—my reaction was yes, yes of course they did. So many songs between those two, but Big-Eyed Beans from Venus was the one playing in my head.

Distant cousins, there's a limited supply.
And we're down to the dozens, and this is why:
Big Eyed Beans from Venus! Oh my, oh my.

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, Big-Eyed Beans from Venus

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Ventura Highway

We hit the coast at Ventura, and in the moment I’d been looking forward to all day, we stopped at one of the State Beaches on the Pacific Coast Highway so I could pull up this song on the car stereo.

'Cause the free wind is blowin' through your hair
And the days surround your daylight there
Seasons crying no despair
Alligator lizards in the air, in the air

America, Ventura Highway

Negative on the alligator lizards, though, aerial or terrestrial.

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Am I the only hopeless romantic around here? Come on, you can confess in the comments, we won’t tell.

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Our Shangri-La

We drove on up to San Luis Obispo and then out to Morro Bay. Being there felt so good that we partied. In our only meal out of the trip (that’s another story in itself), we splurged on beer, sparkling wine, and veggie dogs while looking out at the sunset. The song could be set on any west coast beach, but it worked just fine here.

It's the end of a perfect day for all the surfer boys and girls
The sun’s dropping down in the bay and falling off the world
There's a diamond in the sky, our evening stone in our Shangri-La

Mark Knopfler, Our Shangri-la

Morro Bay. Our Shangri-La.

In the morning, we hung out with the sea otters for a while, then hit the road again.

Morro Bay locals hanging out

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Me and Bobbie McGee

We left heading north to Salinas to meet Brenda’s old skating coach mentor for lunch. 101 took us through Paso Robles and into the Salinas Valley, where many of our fruits, vegetables, and particularly salads, are grown. There are also CAFOs and dairies. Just feet from the road, we saw a dead cow, legs in the air and bloated, while others stood in their own excrement around it. This proximity of animal excrement to salads has led to several E. Coli infections, of animal origin, but salad borne, including this one, reported on by

Michelle Albanes-Davis

.

I confess I didn’t think of this song until later, but it’s perfect.

One day up near Salinas, Lord, I let him slip away
He's lookin' for that home, and I hope he finds it

Janis Joplin (composer Kris Kristofferson), Me and Bobbie McGee

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Dueling Banjos

Leaving Salinas, we drove east to see a childhood skating friend of Brenda’s for the first time in fifty years at her river house in the Sacramento - San Joaquin River Delta. By then it was Friday night, so we got well stuck in the East Bay to Tahoe weekend traffic. Breaking free meant that we found ourselves on dike roads that became increasingly narrow, windy, potholed, subsided, and overgrown until we wondered if we’d somehow left California and gone through a wormhole to emerge in North Georgia.

Theme from Deliverance, Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell, Dueling Banjos.

Our fears were unwarranted. Brenda’s friend is a successful non-profit lawyer in Sacramento and has a fine time in the Delta, as long as she doesn’t talk politics!

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Here’s the playlist, with songs in order of appearance:

Joni Mitchell doesn't do Spotify, so here she is with Pat Metheny on YouTube.

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Thanks for riding along. We’re home, and I'm already fully immersed in water issues. Water fans, the next post will be for you. To make sure you don’t miss it, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.