It’s a song that lifts the soul up. It’s a song for the open highway. It’s a song about love and loss and moving on to greener pastures. It’s Led Zeppelin’s 1971 classic, “Going to California.”
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Below, we will dive into the history and meaning of the acoustic-driven, nostalgic offering from the iconic British-born band. Specifically, what Joni Mitchell and Earthquakes have to do with it. So, without further ado, let’s dive in.
The Meaning
From the band’s untitled fourth studio album, which is also known as Led Zeppelin IV, “Going to California” was released in 1971. Featuring an acoustic music bed with a nimble mandolin line, written by the band’s Swiss Army Knife multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones, “Going to California” showcases singer Robert Plant at the top of his game.
Plant boasts a golden voice, a golden lion’s mane, and more charisma than the cast of Top Gun.
Spent my days with a woman unkind / Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine / Made up my mind to make a new start / Going to California with an aching in my heart / Someone told me there’s a girl out there /With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair, he sings, opening the song, embellishing as often as he can.
Of course, the song is all about the allure of the West—as told through the lens of a crush. Plant, the singer, is leaving the woman who didn’t respect him, who drank and smoked all his reserves. So, he’s headed to California “with an aching” in his heart. He’s going out to the American West Coast in the hopes of meeting a girl with “love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.” Who could it be?
Next Plant tells us, he hopped on a jet plane. He’s headed out west, he can feel the Earth shifting underneath his feet, even if they are thousands of feet above sea level.
In the end, Plant tells us that his hopes are really the stuff of fantasy. And while traveling got him out of his rut, he’ll likely be following this dream forever. (A dream perhaps inspired by Joni Mitchell—more on that below.)
To find a queen without a king / They say she plays guitar and cries and sings, la-la-la / Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn / Tryin’ to find a woman who’s never, never, never been born / Standin’ on a hill in the mountain of dreams / Tellin’ myself it’s not as hard, hard, hard as it seems, he sings.
Earthquakes and Joni Mitchell
Originally, the song was about, not going to California for a tryst, but a song about West Coast earthquakes. It was also originally titled “Guide to California.” Coincidentally, when guitarist Jimmy Page, engineer Andy Johns, and manager Peter Grant went to L.A. to mix Led Zeppelin IV, a real-life earthquake took place.
Years later, Plant talked about the “embarrassing” nature of the song, the lyrics for which he wrote when he was just 22 years old. Telling Spin, 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 truth, the song, after its earthquake period, was inspired by songwriter Joni Mitchell, who was not only one of the most talented artists of her time but also one of the most crushed on, so to speak. Music writer Nick DeRiso of Spin says Mitchell inspired the song, noting, “Plant makes a clear reference to ‘I Had a King’, the opening song from Mitchell’s 1968 debut album, Song to a Seagull: ‘To find a queen without a king’, he quietly offers in the final verse. ‘They say she plays guitar, cries, and sings.'”
While Plant may never have found his “queen,” this song has stood the test of time and has certainly been heard countless times on road-trip playlists.
Check out a great live version of the song below.
Photo by Dick Barnatt/Redferns
