As some of you know, I will be going to the San Diego Comic-Con this year. It’ll be my first time ever, so I’m pretty excited about this whole thing. This is also the first time I’m going back to California in about two years. I was born and raised in California, and didn’t move up to New York until the year two thousand, when I entered higher education. But that’s beside the point.

As a transplanted California native, I have a soft spot for California tunes, and since this is the first time in a long time that I’m heading back, I thought I’d give you all my perfect California playlist. Hold on to something, because this is usually Dylan’s forte, and I know nothing about music except what kind I like. Here goes!

“April 29, 1992 (Miami)” by Sublime: Before you all cry foul, this song isn’t about Miami at all, but was merely recorded in Miami, during a concert. April 29, 1992, is the date of the first day of the Los Angeles Riots, also known as the Rodney King Riots. In this song, Bradley Nowell (straight from the LBC) sings mostly about how he joined in the looting that took place, getting alcohol, musical instruments, and new home furnishings. The song is interspersed with snippets of actual recordings that took place between police officers and emergency pesonnel in the area as the riots were starting. This here is history, folks. Don’t forget it.

“California” by Joni Mitchell: Probably the best song titled simply “California” (and there are a lot of them), Joni Mitchell sings about traveling around the world and meeting new people, but always coming back to California; every stanza ends with “California, I’m coming home.” There are a few anti-war comments in the lyrics (and really, what song from the seventies didn’t have anti-war comments?), which just heightens it’s inherent California-ness, as Berkley and the like were hot spots for the anti-war movement.

“California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and the Papas: No California playlist is complete without this classic, especially for California natives in the Northeast. The lines “If I didn’t tell her / I could leave today” really resonate for me (although I’d never not tell you, honey, so don’t kick my ass), although “I could be safe and warm / If I was in LA” isn’t entirely true. Warm, certainly. Safe, it all depends on where in LA you are and what your definition of “safe” is.

“California Love” by 2Pac and Dr. Dre: Possibly the height of West Coast rap, it starts with a great rhyme from Dre and ends with possibly a better rhyme from 2Pac, gettting me so pumped up, I feel a need to just tell everybody I’m from California. “Welcome everybody to the wild, wild west / A state that’s untouchable like Elliot Ness” is Dre’s opening, which are the first words after the synth vocals telling the world that California knows how to party. Dre finishes his rap, there’s a little intermission, and the 2Pac does his thing, and he ends with “Let me serenade the streets of L.A. / From Oakland to Sacktown / The Bay Area and back down / Cali is where they put they mack down.” I can’t listen to that (or even think about listening to that, as I am currently doing) without just pumping my fist in the air. Give me love, indeed.

“Californication” by Red Hot Chili Peppers: I literally could have picked any Peppers song for a California playlist, but I chose this one for two reasons: “Space may be the final frontier / But it’s made in a Hollywood basement” and “And Alderaan’s not far away / It’s Californication.” Yes, I’m from California, but I’m also a big ole geek. References to both Star Trek and Star Wars, as well simultaneously praising Hollywood ingenuity while decrying the Hollywood lifestyle? Yeah, “Californication” wins.

“Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash: Folsom Prison is located in northern California, slightly north of Sacramento, and Johnny Cash had a fantastic concert there for the inmates after he got clean. The song “Folsom Prison Blues” is sung from the perspective of an inmate who just wants out. It’s no secret that Cash felt like he had some kind of rapport with cons, and this song really makes one believe that Cash knew of imprisonment intimately, even though he wasn’t arrested until long after the song was written (he didn’t even serve time, if I remember correctly). Regardless, this song gives you a real inside look into the mind of a con in the California penal system, which you can’t really have unless you are a con in the California penal system (or Johnny Cash, apparently).

“L.A. Woman” by The Doors: Most of this song makes absolutely no sense. None at all. But that doesn’t really matter as the music itself is so dang good, I don’t really care what Mr. Mojo Risin’ is saying. However, he does say some sensical things:

Well, I just got into town about an hour ago
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow
Where the little girls in their hollywood bungalows
Are you a lucky little lady in the city of light
Or just another lost angel…city of night

Most people know this, but in case you don’t, “Los Angeles” is Spanish for “The Angels,” so LA’s nicknamed “City of Angels,” “City of Lost Angels,” and many other permutations thereof. This song is about getting a prostitute in LA, and while I’ve never partaken of that particular vice myself, I hear Hollywood hookers are actually quite good, making this song about a worthy California endeavour. Also, it’s the Doors, so just go with it.

“Porterville” by Creedence Clearwater Revival: There are many better California songs by CCR (like “Lodi,” for example), but those other songs aren’t named after the town I grew up in. They also don’t begin with lines “It’s been an awful long time since I been home, \ But you won’t catch me goin’ back down there alone.” Don’t get me wrong, I love California. But I hate Porterville. It’s tiny and there is nothing to do there, nothing at all. We have a bowling alley and a Denny’s, and the bowling alley closes at 8pm. Teenagers and twenty-somethings have to drive a half hour to Visalia, or an hour to Bakersfield to do something fun on the weekends. The first two lines of the next stanza also resonate for me, but that’s slightly more personal than I’m willing to get at the moment, so I’ll leave you with that.

“San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)” by Scott McKenzie: This one’s pretty mellow (like, really mellow), and while it name checks Frisco a lot (seven times for a song that’s not quite three minutes long and has only eighteen lines is a lot), that’s not the only reason this is a California song. The mellowness of this song reminds one of the calm euphoria drugs can induce. While the hippie movement was country-wide (and deserving of almost as much hate as Communism), California, especially northern California, was a big focal point for it. And we all know how much hippies love flowers and drugs. But even with all that stuff going against it, this song still manages to worm its way into my heart and make me love it. …stupid hippies…

“Santa Monica” by Everclear: This is break-up song, mostly, and bad break-up at that. But it is nonetheless included here because of where the singer wants to go to get away from the bad break-up: Santa Monica. California is just the place to be when someone breaks your heart, and you just have to get away. It’s important to note that the method of the apocalypse here is fire as the lines “We can live beside the ocean / Leave the fire behind / Swim out past the breakers / Watch the world die” suggest. This was before global warming was all the rage, so the fire will come while the coast is still at Santa Monica and not further inland, like Phoenix.

“(Sitting On) The Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding: Another song about San Francisco, but you know, better. Otis Redding has a voice that just screams soulful (well, not literally, but you know what I’m saying). A man has traveled across the country to sit on a dock by the San Francisco Bay, and he’s content just to be, and be there. Yeah, that’s all I got. It’s just good.

And now, some Honorable Mentions with no commentary whatsoever:

“Amber” by 311
“Beverly Hills” by Weezer
“California” by Phantom Planet
“California” by Semisonic
“California Girls” by The Beach Boys
“Going to California” by Led Zeppelin
“Naked and Famous” by The Presidents of the United States of America
“Straight Outta Compton” by NWA
“Under the Sun” by Sugar Ray

So that’s my California playlist. Following are some Honorable Mentions, but with no commentary. What do you think? Is this a good list? Are there better California songs out there? Does my musical taste suck? Let me know.

P.S. The title quote is originally from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:45 to be exact, which says that God “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (depending on the version, the words will be slightly different, but the gist is the same; this is from the King James Version). The California twist was added in by Alan Moore in the best comic book of all time: Watchmen.