What is ‘It Never Rains in Southern California’ actually about?
I often wonder what a large portion of the British public would do if they lived in the eternal sunshine of California.
As our dreary winter fades into the horizon, welcoming back brief glimpses of spring sunshine, I’ve laughed at the speed at which all of our people have flocked to the pub. Not even ten degrees, local bars have been brimming with wide-eyed Brits who relish the opportunity to return to their favourite beer garden and cosplay as retirees on the Costa Del Sol.
But to dream of that golden sunshine, we have to endure the depths of a miserable winter. Where nights draw in early, and the promise of warmer weather feels not only distant, but somewhat impossible. At least that is what we would like to think when we listen to Albert Hammond’s dreamy ‘It Never Rains In Southern California’.
In terms of a narrative structure, that is as bulletproof as it comes – romanticising the endless summers of one of the world’s most glamorous locations. But while Albert Hammond was indeed in dreary London at the time of writing the song, the song isn’t actually about the simple nature of wishing you were in warmer climates.
So, what is ‘It Never Rains In Southern California’ actually about?
Well, it can all be traced back to Hammond’s upbringing in Gibraltar – the equally sunny location marked the spot where he began to earn his crust as an artist, painstakingly making ends meet while trying to fulfil his dream.
He explained, “I was asking for money outside of the train stations because I had no money to eat, and I didn’t want to tell my parents… My cousin was on honeymoon then, and he came out of the train station and saw me, and I didn’t even know it was him, I just asked him for some money, too, and he said, ‘You should be ashamed, I’m gonna tell your father,’ and I said, ‘Please, don’t tell him, he’ll go crazy and stop me doing this!’”
So despite playing under the hot Gilbratan heat, Hammond was still dreaming of the career sunshine that he believed Southern California would actually provide him. The dangling carrot of Los Angeles – which portrayed itself as an endless expanse of summer sunshine that will action your wildest dreams to action – was the real subject of Hammond’s iconic song.
He continued his story, explaining that despite his father eventually finding out, he still harboured that deep belief that California would make it all work out.
He continued, explaining that his cousin had taken him back into the hotel, “He gave me some clean clothes and some money. I moved on, but he did tell my father, you know.”
Concluding, “All these things like ‘will you tell the folks back home I nearly made it’ and all that stuff came from that era of my life when I was struggling, trying to make it, trying to get from Morocco to Spain, from Spain to England, from England to America… That struggle you go through, that’s ‘It Never Rains In Southern California’, the story of my life.”
