"Going to California" is a ballad written and performed by the English rock band Led Zeppelin. It was released from the band's untitled fourth album in 1971.

The song started out as a song about Californian earthquakes and when Jimmy Page, audio engineer Andy Johns and band manager Peter Grant travelled to Los Angeles to mix Led Zeppelin IV, they coincidentally experienced a minor earthquake. At this point it was known as "Guide to California". In an interview he gave to Spin magazine in 2002, Plant stated that the song "might be a bit embarrassing at times lyrically, but it did sum up a period of my life when I was 22."

This live version, from Led Zeppelin's performance at Earls Court in 1975, is featured on disc 2 of the Led Zeppelin DVD and again on the Mothership DVD.

Lyrics

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

Side 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

Songwriters: Robert Anthony Plant / James Patrick Page

Going to California lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc