Out on bail, fresh outta jail, California dreamin’

I’ve made some thematically Californian mix CDs for my girlfriend, a native of the Golden State. Each song has “California” or a California city in the title. I like to make mixes this way because it sends me to the file-swapping dungeon to find hidden gems, based only on a word in a song title. (I’ve done this with seasons, too — “Autumn” is particularly weird.)

So in my searches for “California” songs, I inevitably cross quite a bit of that old Eagles standard. You know the one. I refuse to put it on a mix for my girlfriend, because, well, I hate the fuckin’ Eagles, man. But in the spirit of The Big Lebowski, I have used that Gipsy Kings cover of the song, performed almost entirely in Spanish.

The Al B. Sure and Edi Fitzroy versions never made it onto a mix, because, well, they’re pretty long and repetitive and just not that good. But as curiosities, they’re pretty amusing, especially Mr. Sure’s dramatic reading. The links in this paragraph go to em-pee-threes — I don’t think I was clear on that in my last post. So, enjoy, and pop by my site sometime if you get a chance.