Michelle Phillips on California Dreamin'

Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & The Papas speaks to Jason Barnard about the background behind and writing of The Mamas & The Papas’ ‘California Dreamin’. This is an extract of an extensive interview with Michelle Phillips on The Strange Brew. A podcast version is also now available.

Music was changing around 1965. The Beatles were huge. That must have marked a shift in the sounds that you were influenced by.

It was that night that Cass came over and we all took the acid. I think she was the one who brought The Beatles album with her. That was the first time that we had actually really sat down and listened to the Beatles. Denny kept saying, “That’s what we have to do. They’re the kind of songs you have to write, John. Enough of me and my uncle and make me a pallet on the floor.” Denny was the one who really changed the direction of our sound.

Even Cass wasn’t as influential as Denny was, because Cass really wanted to go to Broadway. She’d always wanted to go on Broadway, but she knew she just wasn’t getting anywhere. And it wasn’t until we left and got to the Virgin Islands and then she came down. We started singing with Cass and Denny, and my God, that was a complete revelation for us, when the four of us were singing John’s arrangements. He was a brilliant vocal arranger. We would sit on the beach in St. John and just light a great big bonfire and pass around a bottle of whiskey and singing and singing and singing. John would be perfecting his vocal arrangements. I remember we were sitting at Duffy’s because we went back to Charlotte Amelie because we had to get a job.

We were completely out of money. We had ‘California Dreamin’ at that point. John and I had written that a couple of years before but it was kind of one of those songs that we wrote, we threw it in the drawer and kind of forgot about it.

But we started singing at Duffy’s, just John, Denny and I. John always maintained that he didn’t want Cass in the group. That’s not true. He was begging Cass to be in the group, but she wasn’t sure that that was the route that she wanted to go. She was hemming and hawing. John finally said, “Cass, what’s the matter? Why don’t you want to join the group?” She said “I’m never going to let an audience make the distinct difference between me and Michelle.” He said, “Is this about your weight?” She said “Yeah.” And he says, “This isn’t a beauty contest. This is a singing group and we sound great and you really have to…”

She was still saying no and one morning we’re drinking beers in Duffy’s bar and the radio is on and we heard ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ on the radio. We were listening to it and John said “Is that The Byrds?” Listen, The Byrds were just a little west coast opening act. They used to open for people at The Troubadour. They weren’t a really sophisticated group the last time we had heard them. Now we hear them singing ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ and they’re saying [mimics the radio] and it’s shooting up the charts, it’s gonna go to number one! We said “Oh my God! That is The Byrds.” Then Cass said, “We got to get to LA fast because if The Byrds can have a hit, anybody could have it.”

You knew that song because you played it.

Yeah. We knew that song. But, they put a whole new spin on it, which was great. We were happy for them, but we just really knew that if The Byrds could have a hit, anybody could.

We knew Barry McGuire. We got on a plane. We went to L.A. and went straight to Barry McGuire’s because he had a number one song with ‘Eve of Destruction’ at that point. He had been in a group called Barry and Barry, two Barrys. Then he was in The New Christy Minstrels and he was just one of these folk singers that bopped around. When we went to see him in L.A, we were singing for him, and he said, “You ought to sing for my producer. I have a really cool producer, his name is Lou Adler. He would like this stuff. He really would love it.” So the next day, we’re down at Western Studios auditioning for Lou Adler and he said, “Hmm, yeah, that’s good. That’s nice.”He was very non-committal and said “Why don’t you guys come back tomorrow at around 3 and we’ll talk about it some more.” We said “Okay”.

So we went back there and they had contracts laid all over the floor for us. We hadn’t convinced Cass until she saw those contracts on the floor. And she was the first one signing them.She really had just told us that she was going to go for the audition with us, but after that we were on our own. But when she saw the contracts, she wanted to work. They were offering us a job. So we signed on to Dunhill Records, and ‘California Dreamin’ was released. We heard it on the radio once and then we didn’t hear it. We were just about to give up on it when it broke in Boston. And when that broke in Boston, it broke all over the United States and all over the world.

Even though it was a huge hit, it never got to number one. It got number four. That’s as far as it got. But you can’t imagine the kind of people we were up against. We were against The Beatles. We were against The Stones. We were up against everybody at Motown. It was all English invasion. If you got your record to number four on the Billboard charts, you were thrilled. And we were. Then John wrote ‘Monday Monday’, and Cass and I hated it.

Really?

Hated it. I said, “That’s the most pretentious song I have ever heard, John.” His feelings were a little hurt. He said “Well I like it.” Denny said “I don’t know John, I kind of agree with the girls.” Then John said, “Let’s sing it for Lou.” And we did. Lou said “What are you guys talking about? This song is great.” We said “No, it’s not.” He said “It is. And do you know what? It’s gonna be your next single.” I said “This is going to be the end of a very promising career for all of us.” He looked at me and he said, “How about you do the singing and I’ll do the releasing, Mitch?” And of course, it shot to number one.