Artista: Led Zeppelin
Album: Led Zeppelin IV (8 novembre 1971)
Canzone: Going to California
Originariamente intitolata “Guide To California”, Going to California è la settima e penultima canzone contenuta dell’album Led Zeppelin IV, dato alle stampe nel 1971, caratterizzata da una malinconica musicalità folk, con la voce di Robert Plant accompagnata dalla chitarra acustica di Jimmy Page e dal mandolino di John Paul Jones.
Going to California
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
Took my chances on a big jet plane
Never let them tell you that they’re all the same
The sea was red and the sky was grey
Wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today
The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake
As the children of the sun began to awake
Seems that the wrath of the Gods
Got a punch on the nose and it started to flow;
I think I might be sinking
Throw me a line if I reach it in time
I’ll meet you up there where the path
Runs straight and high
To find a queen without a king;
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings
La la la la
Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin’ to find a woman who’s never, never, never been born
Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself it’s not as hard, hard, hard as it seems
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ty_WlmIKvY
Non sono pochi coloro che nella “ragazza con l’amore negli occhi e i fiori tra i capelli” cantata nel brano hanno voluto riconoscere la cantautrice Joni Mitchell, verso la quale sia Plant che Page nutrivano grandissima stima dal punto di vista tanto lirico quanto musicale, al punto di farne un vero e proprio riferimento artistico. Nelle esecuzioni dal vivo del brano, Plant scandiva spesso il nome “Joni” dopo il verso “To find a queen without a king, they say she plays guitar and cries and sings”, che alcuni vogliono essere riferito al brano della Mitchell del 1967 dal titolo “I Had a King”. (it-wikipedia, en-wikipedia)