Not everybody loves California or believes in the California Dream. This is a list of songs with lyrics that mention some of the negative features of the Golden State or one of it's cities, all taken from the main list of songs that mention California. Most of these singers are not California haters, they're just pointing out some problems. A lot of these songs are about the dark side of California, especially in L.A. and Hollywood, including drugs, crime, and other social problems, as well as the cons and scams of the entertainment industry in sin city.
People love to diminish anything successful. In the same way people like to watch the many films that show California, especially Los Angeles, destroyed by fires, earthquakes, tidal waves, and other natural disasters, or by aliens, crime, war, and other calamities (such as the movie about a volcano that erupted in L.A.) we also sometimes like to hear songs that show the state as less than golden. Sometimes the singer of one of these songs is unhappy because their love moved to California leaving them behind. Sometimes the singer misses someone they left behind when they moved. Other songs criticize the state for its traffic jams, the lack of four distinct seasons and a snowy winter, the too-sunny weather, the smog, the high cost of living, Hollywood phoniness and plastic surgery, or often because someone's California dream of success in the entertainment industry turned out to be a nightmare. Sometimes a singer is just tired of being in California and needs a change. A few of these songs were made by conservative hit squads trying to ruin the progressive reputation of California for political reasons, but they're still California songs, so I begrudgingly put some of them on the list. (But not those that are too offensive.)
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