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This is the most haunting song ever, and that is a hill I will die on.
My mom is of the age that the '60s were her golden age of music. This is one of the songs that makes me think fondly of my childhood, riding in her tiny Chevy Sprint with the windows down because there was no A.C., the volume cranked up to scream over the wind. I really miss the fact that I couldn't tell both my mom and I were (and still are) horrible singers. There is something cathartic about singing at the top of your lungs, and I've lost that outlet unless I'm going solo, unfortunately. I have to relegate that to solo driving because my voice is the type that makes bats fly into walls. Any passengers consider jumping from my moving vehicle.
As a child, I couldn't comprehend the lyrics, so it was only the sound that struck my heart. It made me think of ghosts, the lost, and maybe a little bit of the damned.
I may have been slightly influenced by my mom telling me Mama Cass died choking on a ham sandwich. As an adult, I find it a strange relief that the ham sandwich was a load of shit (Mama Cass' autopsy determined she died of heart failure) because there was something terrifying and disturbing to me about a ham sandwich killing her. It was something about salty ham (I hate ham) suffocating a beautiful voice that bothered me in a way I couldn't define as a child. Salty food just sucks the moisture out of your mouth, and this salt demanded so much her life left.
In one of my composition classes I bring "California Dreamin'" and Adele's "Hello" to the table for rhetorical analysis. The connections students make between these songs are beautiful. They also bring words to my feelings I've questioned the validity of, because many of them describe "California Dreamin'" as haunting, eerie, and other similar expressions.
All the leaves are brown (all the leaves are brown)
And the sky is grey (and the sky is grey)
I've been for a walk (I've been for a walk)
On a winter's day (on a winter's day)
Dudes, the speaker is a freaking ghost. The leaves are dead. It's winter when everything is deathly and bare. Being from the midwest, my idea of winter is grave. Maybe cool weather, empty air, and browned leaves define winter in other areas of the country. Where I grew up and live currently winter has a sharpness in the air the slices through your skin, your ears, your lungs. Your very breath is a stab in the chest. You can smell the incoming storms. During a snowstorm the earth is surreally quiet, at once a death pause and beauty. When the storms pass, humans plow, drive, and step on this new crisp beginning. The once-white snow is muddied and dirty and shoved out of the way (as well as your driveway, and so it begins, the great battle with snowplows).
Being in my specific location means empty fields. Miles and miles of space are choked with life in the summer; you can't see past the walls of new life to see anything but. In the heat of summer, corn in particular, exhales to make its own breath a fog. In winter, all that life is gone from the landscape.
You know who else are believed to live in an empty, desolate world? Ghosts.
I'd be safe and warm (I'd be safe and warm)
If I was in L.A. (if I was in L.A.)
…
I passed along the way
Well, I got down on my knees (got down on my knees)
And I pretend to pray (I pretend to pray)
You know the preacher like the cold (preacher like the cold)
He knows I'm gonna stay (knows I'm gonna stay)
The mention of L.A. (City of Angels) is symbolism for heaven, and it's a place this ghost just can't go to; it's a place they turned their back on to keep their spirit-ly feet on this plane of existence. He stops at a church and pretends to pray, and the preacher knows there is no saving this lost soul because this soul wants to stay lost. There is no salvation unless you ask for it. There's no walking away from your spiritual commitment if you are half-hearted.