Going to California
Encyclopedia
"Going to California" is a song performed by English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 rock band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...

 Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

 from their fourth album
Led Zeppelin IV
The fourth album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin was released on 8 November 1971. No title is printed on the album, so it is generally referred to as Led Zeppelin IV, following the naming standard used by the band's first three studio albums...

, released in 1971.

Overview

The song's wistful folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

-style sound, with Robert Plant
Robert Plant
Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...

 on lead vocals, acoustic guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 by Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...

 and mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

 by John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones (musician)
John Paul Jones is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, arranger and record producer. Best known as the bassist, mandolinist, and keyboardist for English rock band Led Zeppelin, Jones has since developed a solo career and has gained even more respect as both a musician and a...

, contrasts with the heavy electric-amplified rock on four of the album's other tracks. Page's guitar is in double drop D tuning
Double Drop D tuning
Double drop D tuning: DADGBD, also known simply as double drop D, is an alternative guitar tuning: E strings are tuned down one whole step to D rather than E as in standard tuning .- Uses of double dropped D tuning :...

: DADGBD.

The song is reportedly about Canadian singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...

, with whom Plant and Page were both infatuated. In live performances of the song, Plant would often say the name "Joni" after this stanza (which is thought to have referenced Mitchell's 1967 composition "I Had a King"):



In an interview he gave to Spin magazine in 2002, Plant stated that the song "might be a bit embarrassing at times lyrically, but it did sum up a period of my life when I was 22." In a 2007 interview with the same magazine, Plant stated that the song was about "Me reflecting on the first years of the group, when I was only about... 20, and was struggling to find myself in the midst of all the craziness of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 and the band and the groupies..."

This song started out as a song about Californian earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...

s and when Jimmy Page, audio engineer Andy Johns
Andy Johns
Andy Johns is an engineer and producer who worked on well-known rock albums such as Led Zeppelin's IV and The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street. His sound is exemplified by Free's album Highway, which he engineered and produced....

 and band manager Peter Grant travelled to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 to mix the album, they coincidentally experienced a minor earthquake. At this point it was known as "Guide to California".

At Led Zeppelin concerts
Led Zeppelin concerts
From September 1968 through the summer of 1980, English rock group Led Zeppelin were one of the world's most popular live music attractions, performing hundreds of sold-out concerts around the world.-History:...

 the band performed this song during their acoustic sets, first playing it on their Spring 1971 tour of the United Kingdom
Led Zeppelin United Kingdom Tour Spring 1971
Led Zeppelin's Spring 1971 United Kingdom & Ireland Tour was a concert tour of the United Kingdom & Ireland by the English rock band...

. One live version, from Led Zeppelin's performance at Earls Court in 1975, is featured on disc 2 of the Led Zeppelin DVD.

It was performed on Plant's solo tours during 1988/1989 and at the Knebworth
Knebworth
Knebworth is a village and civil parish in the north of Hertfordshire, England immediately south of Stevenage. The civil parish covers an area between the villages of Datchworth, Woolmer Green, Codicote, Kimpton, Whitwell, St Paul's Walden and Langley, and encompasses the village of Knebworth, the...

 Silver Clef show in 1990. He played it again on his Mighty ReArranger
Mighty ReArranger
Mighty ReArranger is a studio album by British rock singer Robert Plant and his band the Strange Sensation. It was released internationally on 25 April 2005, on 9 May in the United Kingdom and 10 May in the United States...

tour, with additions of a double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

 and a synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

.

Personnel

  • Robert Plant
    Robert Plant
    Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...

     - vocals
    Singing
    Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

  • Jimmy Page
    Jimmy Page
    James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...

     - acoustic guitar
    Acoustic guitar
    An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

    s
  • John Paul Jones
    John Paul Jones (musician)
    John Paul Jones is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, arranger and record producer. Best known as the bassist, mandolinist, and keyboardist for English rock band Led Zeppelin, Jones has since developed a solo career and has gained even more respect as both a musician and a...

     - mandolin
    Mandolin
    A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...


Cover versions

  • 1993: Dread Zeppelin
    Dread Zeppelin
    Dread Zeppelin is an American band best known for performing the songs of Led Zeppelin in a reggae style as sung by a 300 pound Vegas Elvis impersonator. Over the years they would also perform songs originally by Elvis Presley, Bob Marley and The Yardbirds. The group toured extensively around the...

     (Hot & Spicy Beanburger
    Hot & Spicy Beanburger
    Hot and Spicy Beanburger, released in 1993, is the fourth studio album by Dread Zeppelin. This album marks the return of Tortelvis, the lead singer who left the band and was not on the previous album, It's Not Unusual, which was criticized by many fans due to its focus on disco songs.On Hot and...

    )
  • 1994: Marc Jöcis (State of the Heart)
  • 1995: Never the Bride
    Never The Bride
    Never the Bride is an English rock band, founded before 1991, fronted by Bristol native Nikki Lamborn, who writes original songs along with the band's keyboard player, Catherine Feeney...

     (Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin)
  • 1995: Michael White & The White
    Michael White & The White
    Michael White & The White is an American hard rock combo and occasional Led Zeppelin cover band, formed around singer Michael White.Michael White started his career in 1973...

     (Plays the Music of Led Zeppelin)
  • 1996: Edgar Cruz
    Edgar Cruz
    Edgar Cruz is an independent classical and fingerstyle guitarist from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Having recorded over a sixteen CDs in styles ranging from classical to flamenco to pop to jazz, Cruz is perhaps best known for his fingerstyle arrangement of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"...

     (The A.R.T. of Edgar Cruz)
  • 1997: Jaz Coleman
    Jaz Coleman
    Jeremy "Jaz" Coleman is a musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer. He is notable for his vocal contributions to rock band Killing Joke...

     and the London Philharmonic Orchestra
    London Philharmonic Orchestra
    The London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...

     (Kashmir: Symphonic Led Zeppelin)
  • 1997: Zakk Wylde
    Zakk Wylde
    Zachary Phillip Wylde , best known by the stage name Zakk Wylde, is an American musician, songwriter, and occasional actor who is best known as the former guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne and founder of the heavy metal band Black Label Society. He was the lead guitarist and vocalist in Pride & Glory,...

     (Stairway to Heaven)
  • 1998: Morgaua Quartet (Destruction: Rock Meets Strings)
  • 1998: Cinnamon (The Song Replays the Same II)
  • 1999: Great White
    Great White
    Great White is an American hard rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1978. The band gained popularity during the 1980s and early 1990s. The band released several albums in the late 1980s and gained airplay on MTV with music videos for songs like "Once Bitten, Twice Shy"...

     (Great Zeppelin: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin
    Great Zeppelin: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin
    Great Zeppelin: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin is a cover album released by the American hard rock band Great White in 1998, dedicated to songs of Led Zeppelin. It was recorded live in a concert that took place at The Galaxy Theatre of Santa Ana, California, USA, in December 1996 and released by the...

    )
  • 1999: The String Quartet (The String Quartet Tribute to Led Zeppelin)
  • 1999: Jay Aston (The Song Remains Remixed: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin, Rosetta Stone
    Rosetta Stone (band)
    Rosetta Stone were a British goth band formed in the mid 1980s by Porl King and Karl North , plus their drum machine and synthesizer rack nicknamed "Madame Razor"....

     remix)
  • 2000: Joseph Patrick Moore (Soul Cloud)
  • 2000: Clove (Go)
  • 2000: Mario da Silva (Meet Mario)
  • 2000: Dennis Caplinger (Pickin' on Zeppelin: A Tribute)
  • 2001: Richard DeVinck (Going to California: A Classical Guitarist's Tribute to Led Zeppelin)
  • 2001: Out of Phase (A Tribute to Led Zeppelin IV)
  • 2001: Never Never (Never Never Tribute II)
  • 2001: Simply Led (From the Land of the Ice and Snow)
  • 2002: Katherine Ramirez (Livin, Lovin, Played: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin)
  • 2003: Fuel
    Fuel (band)
    Fuel is an American rock band formed by guitarist/songwriter Carl Bell and bassist Jeff Abercrombie in 1989. Originally known as Small the Joy, they changed the group's name to Fuel sometime in 1994...

     (Something Like Human
    Something Like Human
    Early promotional press editions of the album included the songs "Sister Mary Innocent" and the Scallions penned "Bruises", which ultimately were left off the final sequence of the album which was released to stores. Neither of these recordings have been released publicly by the band...

    [bonus tracks edition])
  • 2004: Paul Gilbert
    Paul Gilbert
    Paul Brandon Gilbert is an American guitarist. He is well known for his technical guitar work with Racer X and Mr...

     with John Paul Jones (Guitar Wars)
  • 2004: Hampton String Quartet
    Hampton String Quartet
    The Hampton String Quartet considered by many to be one of the founders of the "alternative music" genré of chamber music is a string quartet specializing in rock music and other popular styles, playing serious chamber music arrangements of songs using classical composer influences and frequently...

     (HSQ Rides Again)
  • 2004: Jamie Reno with Randi Driscoll (All American Music)

  • 2004: Benjamin Levine (Chamber Maid: The Baroque Tribute to Led Zeppelin)
  • 2004: The Classic Rock String Quartet (The Led Zeppelin Chamber Suite: A Classic Rock Tribute to Led Zeppelin)
  • 2004: Hero (Live at Velour)
  • 2005: Liz Larin
    Liz Larin
    Liz Larin is a Detroit-based singer-songwriter and rock musician who has risen to become one of the most celebrated artists of the Detroit music scene...

     (Wake Up, Start Dreaming)
  • 2005: Sly and Robbie
    Sly and Robbie
    Sly and Robbie is the prolific Jamaican rhythm section and production team of drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare who joined in the mid 1970s after having established themselves separately in Jamaica as professional musicians...

     (The Rhythm Remains the Same: Sly & Robbie Greets Led Zeppelin)
  • 2005: Sun Palace (Give Me a Perfect World)
  • 2005: The Young Unknowns (The East Village Sessions: Volume 1)
  • 2005: Led Zepagain (A Tribute to Led Zeppelin)
  • 2006: The Analogues (The Analogues)
  • 2006: Julian Coryell (Undercovers)
  • 2006: Bar 12 (Start the Machine)
  • 2006: The Rockies (The Hits Re-Loaded: The Music of Led Zeppelin)
  • 2006: Michael Armstrong (Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Led Zeppelin)
  • 2007: Jake Shimabukuro
    Jake Shimabukuro
    Jake Shimabukuro is an ukulele virtuoso known for his complex finger work. His music combines elements of jazz and rock.- History :...

     (My Life
    My Life (Jake Shimabukuro album)
    My Life is a 2007 album by Jake Shimabukuro playing ukulele. It peaked at number 13 on the Top World Music Albums chart.-Track listing:# Time After Time 3.06 ; players: ukulele Jake Simabukuro, guitar Bruce Shimabukuro, percussion Tamao Fujii)# Going to California 4.05 # In My Life 3.30 # Somewhere...

    )
  • 2007: Kenny James (Give Me Peace)
  • 2007: Anastasia Gilliam (Slip Beneath the Covers)
  • 2007: Dawn Tyler Watson & Paul Deslauriers (En Duo)
  • 2007: Pascal Mono (La Rascasse: Monte Carlo, Volume I)
  • 2007: The Boys from County Nashville (Long Ago and Far Away: The Celtic Tribute to Led Zeppelin)
  • 2007: The Nowtet (The Nowtet Plays Zep!)
  • 2007: The Bastard Sons of Dioniso (Even Lemmy sometimes sleeps)
  • 2008: Davey T Hamilton (Classics)
  • 2008: Lore Constantine (Piano Expressions)
  • 2008: Letz Zep (In Concert)
  • 2009: Ben Lapps (The New Color)
  • 2009: Hall Pass (Hard Rock Covers)
  • 2011: Brian Morse (YouTube)


Sources

  • Lewis, Dave (2004) The Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin, ISBN 0-7119-3528-9
  • Welch, Chris (1998) Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused: The Stories Behind Every Song, ISBN 1-56025-818-7

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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