GOIN' CALI^©

Well he'd been hearing too many voices and feelin' a little off-track
Like there was something big pressing down on his back
So he called up his friends and they said come on out west
It's a place where a man can really feel his success

So he pulled his heart and soul down off the shelf
Packed them next to the faith that he'd lost in himself
Said his good-byes and when the dirty work was done
He turned his wheels into the fading sun
(Goin' Cali)
(Goin' Cali)
(Goin' Cali)
(Goin' Cali)

For seven days and nights like a black-top bird he sped
Maintained radio silence 'cept for in his head
And just like his folks did back in '69
He crossed the border at Needles and heard the promised land on the line
(Goin' Cali)
(Goin' Cali)
(Goin' Cali)
(Goin' Cali)

Now where the Transcontinental dumps into the sea
There's a bar made up to look like 1963
Girl in the corner eyed him like a hungry dog a bone
As he brushed the desert dust off that Mercedes chrome
Bartender said "Hey, how's it hangin', tiger?"
He had a shot of tequila, smiled and whispered "lighter"

He went down to the desert city where the rattlesnakes play
And left his dead skin by the roadside in the noon of day
Sun got so hot it almost felt like friend
It could burn out every trace of where you been

There was a woman he'd met in a desert song (goin' Cali)
A little while later a son come along (goin' Cali)
Looked at that boy's smile and called it home
And that night as he lay in bed the only voice he heard was his own

(Goin' Cali)
(Goin' Cali)
(Goin' Cali)
(Goin' Cali)
(Goin' Cali)

Outtake from the Human Touch sessions. Recorded on 09 Jan 1991 at A&M Studios, Los Angeles, CA. Released on Tracks in 1998.

From the interview with Mark Hagen on MOJO Magazine, Jan 1999:

[Mark Hagen:] The other autobiographical song is Goin' Cali; is that you?

[Bruce:] Yes, that's me. I was going to go out and play with a band and needed music that was going to fill that straw, but in the meantime I wrote about half a record on the bass, where you had a note and you had your idea. I wrote about half or more of a record. The only one that made it to release was 57 Channels, but on this thing there was Over The Rise, When The Lights Go Out, Loose Change, Goin' Cali, Gave It A Name, even My Lover Man, all these very psychological portraits of people wrestling with relationships and their own isolation. Goin' Cali, I suppose, was just an experimental thing I laid down in the studio one day: I don't even remember recording it or how it came about but it traces, ironically, my journey at that time out West.