100 Greatest Songs of the 60’s #13 The Mamas and The Papas – California Dreamin’

Released: 1965

Every so often a song achieves a transcendence way beyond it’s construct – Imagine, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Seven Nation Army will get you started here – such that it evolves both as a de facto classic in it’s genre but also as a metaphor for times, places, or cultural tide marks.

Released by The Mamas and The Papas before music from the West Coast began to truly dominate American pop consciousness, California Dreamin’ like all touchstones was one of the first examples of the folk rock movement translating it’s zeitgeist into mainstream appeal. It’s longevity though is down to far simpler emotional raw materials, that of the human instinct to always feel somewhere else is better than the status quo.

Each member of the Mamas and The Papas – John Phillips and his wife Michelle, Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot – had musical pasts before coming to the attention of impresario Lou Alder. None of them had worked with a full band until the day they went into the session from which California Dreamin’ would emerge; magically though the quartet’s interjecting harmonies were perfection, a guitar line lifted from the Ventures’ Walk Don’t Run was the backbone, whilst Bud Shank’s jazzy flute solo added a longing streak. Since then it’s come to stand for many things, not least of which being the art of projection, the kind of quality which without an everlasting love from it’s audience is never served.