SOUNDTRACK: JAPANESE BREAKFAST-“California Dreaming'” (2018).
As I was thinking about what song to put with this book, Japanese Breakfast released a cover of the wonderful original. I don’t know too many songs by The Mamas and the Papas, but this is one of my all time favorite songs in general.
I was a little disappointed as the song started because it just Michelle Zauner singing over a delicate organ (it’s the harmonies that I love so much about the original).
But then it becomes evident what Zauner is doing. The song is dirgey and cold, as the lyrics suggests, which is kind of cool.
And then after for the second verse she drops a big beat which adds a cool guitar lick and backing vocalists.
It brings a cool, sensual twist to the song which in the original is kind of poppy, yet dark. The production of the song is quite nice, but it really can’t beat the amazing harmonies of the original.
[READ: July 20, 2017] California Dreamin’
This is a delightful biography of the woman who would become Mama Cass. I knew little about The Mamas & The Papas, and I knew even less about Mama Cass, so this proved to be an excellent and fascinating introduction.
And it is all told with Bagieu’s wonderful drawings–there’s something so wonderfully French about her drawings of the hippie sixties in the US–it’s wonderful. She also makes Mama Cass–who could be drawn fat and unpleasant–as perpetually pretty and sexy, which is pretty cool.
The scene opens in the summer of 1965 (although in the shopping center there is Kohls which I don’t think was in California in 1965, but whatever). A DJ is asking kids what they love about the Mamas and the Papas. They all say Cass obviously, she’s the nicest and coolest.
Then we flashback. And I love the way that she has constructed this story–it focuses on a different person in each chapter. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 