This song ranks as #89 on the Rolling Stone pop and rock chart of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Times:” “California Dreamin.” Remember the song, written and performed by “The Mamas and The Papas?” This pop hit became a signpost for the California Myth that life there exceeded idyllic with its counterculture everything: free love, hallucinatory drugs, anti-Vietnam and anti-establishment.
I wonder, given all the problems California has been dealing with in more recent years, air pollution, excessive drought, out-of-control forest fires and the Hollywood elite 🙂 , to say nothing of the St. Bernardino terrorist attack back in Dec. of 2015, I wonder if the song needs to be rewritten and retitled, “California Nightmare.”
The Mamas and the Papas. Have you ever wondered how they landed their signature name? The story goes back to one night when the newly-formed band was watching a TV interview with a member of the Hells’ Angels. Among his remarks, this biker made the inflammatory statement in our then-evolving feminist culture, “We call our women, ‘mamas.'”
Now here’s where the facts of the story blur. One version, and I like this one because it makes for a better story – fake news is always more intriguing – Cass Elliot jumped up and shouted, “I wanna be a mama.” Don’t ask what she meant by this. Did she want a kid? Or did she have a penchant be a “Back Warmer?” – that’s the gal holding on for dear life to her biker buddy. We’ll never know; because how does one ever verify the facts behind fake news? What we do know is that out of this reaction, the group decided on “The Mamas and the Papas,” the 1st fully, sexually integrated group of the era.
Why not come this Mother’s Day Sunday when we’re going to be learning nothing about those Mamas and Papas, but something about becoming better mamas and papas, better parents who are raising children to become responsible Christian adults?
