california

Artist
derek chafin / joanna justice
Released
2015
  1. california -:-- / -:--

NOTES:
Fuck it. I’ll cop to it. Who doesn’t want to write a traditional American drive fast with the top down through the Nevada desert on the way to Ventura Blvd. No? Well, I sure did. It’s a very proud, distinctly American tradition – Beach Boys to Tom Petty. Now, I’m not saying I got anywhere close. I’m just say I wanted in on the conversation. FREEDOM! I wanted to take all that and wrap it up in a bigger picture about immigration – the most distinctive American idea of all. We are them, they us. Simple. We have in common the love of an Idea. California is on the leading edge of this in both immigration and imagination – that sense of there is only now and future. I also put in a little show biz and LA jabs but that’s only to have the love seem more sincere. It’s the modern Grapes of Wrath that’s happening all around us, right now. This is the celebration of what happens first, of the idea, the movement to. The song started out with my love of the Kings of Leon double stop guitar chord, all down stroke on 8th. Urgency. So, I stole the idea and then bent it. The bridge is a little tribute to the Boss in his earlier days of the epic middle section.

LYRICS:
California / Gives me nothing
Come for dreams and stay for hoping
West Ellis Island / Steinbeck novel
To those with longing to belong nowhere

California catches waves
Where longing is remade
To shine brand new
I’m free to love you now / I’m free to love you now

Freedom is just a word
If you don’t hit the gas and go
And love is just a word
If you never let yourself go

California / Buenos Notches
Wants your screenplay / wants you famous
Stripper starlet / Poet genius
Tends your garden / speaks your language

But she’ll pay you for your pain
In time but not today
But maybe soon
I’m free to miss you now / I’m free to miss you now

(Chorus)

I’m looking for you / But I can’t find you
On your freeway / On your cell phone
California / leaves you breathless
From the punches / From the kisses

Dim the lights and watch the glow
You’ve come here for the show
That never ends

I’m free to want you now / I’m free to want you now / I’m free to want you now

(Chorus)(FIN)

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, COPYRIGHT YADHA, YADHA…JUST play nice.