Just like Paris, California has been romanticized, rewritten and stereotyped, turning this iconic land of dreams into an extreme version of itself.
I moved to LA in 2002 expecting to hate it, after all, I was supposed to be a proud New Yorker. LA charmed me with its kitch and kook and ended up staying longer than expected. I look back fondly on my years here, the place where I started my adult life began while still living out childhood dreams, the place where I met life long friends and the place where my father was born and raised.
I still can't believe my Angeleno father and my typical New York mother had anything in common, especially in the 70's when the two coasts couldn't be more different. What did they talk about on their first date?!
Here are some of my favorite songs that celebrate the Sunshine State.
Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do
311 - Champagne
Hole - Malibu
Joni Mitchell - California
Weezer - Beverly Hills
Phantom Planet - California
Rufus Wainwright - California
Air - Californie
Beulah - Gene Autry
Coconut Records - West Coast
Madonna - Hollywood
X - Los Angeles
Missing Persons - Walking in LA
Guns n' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle
Tupac feat. Dr. Dre - California Love
Hole - Celebrity Skin
...and because I can't help it. I have to smuggle in a French song that references California. Pourquoi pas?
Serge Gainsbourg - Torrey Canyon
To listen to the playlist in its entirety, click here.
Funny, I just downloaded the Hole songs last week! Takes me back to riding around with my friends when we were just starting to get cars of our own (well, them, not me - I didn't start driving till I was 19, kinda late by NZ standards).
ReplyDeleteAnd I gotta nominate 'California über alles' as the coolest Cali track I can think of. I never realised 'Welcome to the Jungle' was about LA though, d'oh!
Yes!! Gotta love those Hole songs! Such pop! Like I've said before, we'd so be friends in we were in the same region de France!
DeleteI'll check out "California über alles". I don't know it.
And yes, LA is the jungle in that G n' R song. I don't know if it is so much a jungle anymore but this place is expensive!! I could never live here again!