Pop Song 165 'Going to California' Led Zeppelin 1971

Pop Song 165 'Going to California' Led Zeppelin 1971

"Going to California" is a folk-style song, with Robert Plant on vocal, acoustic guitar by Jimmy Page and mandolin by John Paul Jones. Page uses an alternative guitar tuning (D–A–D–G–B–D or double drop D tuning) for the recording.

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