California

Single artwork

**California** is a promotional single by Grimes. It is the 2nd track on her fourth studio album, *Art Angels*, and was released as the 4th promotional single.

## Background

In a 2015 interview with *Rolling Stone*, she explained that California came about on a night when, feeling depressed, took a number of tequila shots. In the midst of the haze, she wrote the song’s hook.

### Meaning

As stated on her *SiriusXM* takeover, California is a hate track towards the music website *Pitchfork*. This hate may be the result of various misinterpretations of her words, to which Grimes has expressed her discontent about in several of her Tweets. More generally, It's about "the bad side of music journalism".

Part of the lyrics confess Grimes' "ambivalence about lofty expectations for her own success". (see pre-chorus)

In a retrospective thought about the song, Grimes said this:

>
> ❝ “California,” I think I was just doing Taylor Swift cosplay, but it’s also vaguely about how the media is obsessed with portraying you as this troubled soul or something. ❞
>
>
>
>

## Trivia

* An unleaked demo from November 2, 2014, was 3:55, 37s longer than the final.
* Many publications and reviews have wrongfully stated that California samples "Pon de Replay" by Rihanna.
* A remix by HANA of this song is included in the official NBA 2K17 tracklist.

## Media

### Artwork

The artwork for the song depicts many words throughout the drawing: "fairy cemetery", referencing a term Grimes often calls herself (that being "faery", or "fairy") and "born: year of the dragon"; which directly concerns Boucher as she was born in March 1988, the year of the Dragon on the Chinese zodiac calendar.

#### Background

The track used for the first verses and chorus of the song differs from the version on *Art Angels*; having a more chilled back, dreamy and stripped instrumental. After the release of the video, Grimes took to her Twitter to explain the reason for the alternate rendition of the song featured in the music video, saying it was "dissonant" with the original track and failed to elicit visuals in her mind: "had to re do track because when I looked at the footage it was dissonant w the original song, song elicits no visuals in my mind naturally".

## Lyrics

This, this music makes me cry

It sounds just like my soul, oh

Oh I'm not ready to win

Oh lord 'cause I don't wanna know what they say

'Cause I get carried away

Commodifying all the pain

The things they see in me, I cannot see myself

When you get bored of me, I'll be back on the shelf

And when the ocean rises up above the ground

Baby I'll drown, in...

California

You only like me when you think I'm looking sad

California

I didn't think you'd end up treating me so bad

Oh, I, I, I

Come Monday, it's a dream

Oh, I, I, I

Broken my own heart again

Chasing something beautiful

Oh, but I don't understand what they say

Cause I get carried away

Commodifying all the pain

The things they see in me, I cannot see myself

When you get bored of me, I'll be back on the shelf

And when the ocean rises up above the ground

Baby I'll drown, in...

California

You only like me when you think I'm looking sad

California

I didn't think you'd end up treating me so bad

California

You only like me when you think I'm looking sad

California

I didn't think you'd end up treating me so bad

Oh, I, oh, I

Oh na, na, na, ne

## References

1. ↑ http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/grimes-the-triumph-of-a-self-made-oddball-20151105?page=3
2. ↑ http://blog.siriusxm.com/2015/11/06/grimes-friends-take-over-siriusxmu-in-honor-of-art-angels-release/
3. ↑ https://www.stereogum.com/1843222/caroline-polachek-alexis-krauss-grimes/news/
4. ↑ https://www.elle.com/culture/music/a35362/grimes-profile/
5. ↑ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/grimes-aespa-k-pop-media-ai-music-1234853710/
6. ↑ https://vk.com/photo-9986050\_358797348
7. ↑ https://www.coupdemainmagazine.com/interviews/interview-grimes-art-angels-touring-and-her-arcane-art
8. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_FcBEx08pGk
9. ↑ https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/729783028076019712