A Northern California Love Song
April 20, 2014 11:02 AM   Subscribe

♫ ♫ Well, you came out of nowhere like a Berkeley pedestrian
You stole my heart just like a San Francisco crackhead stole my bike
You drive me crazy like those West Marin hippies
But you're the kind of Northern Californian that I like ♫ ♫

An affectionate look at the locals from New Yorker-turned-Californian Emily Yates.
posted by Lexica (19 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Cute song, but it focuses mostly on the woo Ecotopia aspects of NorCal. These days you gotta toss in a line or two about the second great irrational exuberance of startup tech culture.
posted by Apocryphon at 11:14 AM on April 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


I was laughing loudly before the cut. Probably due those times I lived in NorCa.
posted by _paegan_ at 11:46 AM on April 20, 2014


It's a cute song but having lived here my whole life, I'm not sure we were short on caricatures.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 11:55 AM on April 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


There is one particular NorCal word that was hella missing from that song.
posted by Aizkolari at 12:06 PM on April 20, 2014 [19 favorites]


Cute song, but it focuses mostly on the woo Ecotopia aspects of NorCal.

You're the kind of Northern Californian I hella like. ♫ ♫
posted by ActingTheGoat at 12:15 PM on April 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


Now do the Central Valley!

...I'll wait.
posted by psoas at 12:24 PM on April 20, 2014 [7 favorites]


We hella say hella in Northern California.
posted by entropicamericana at 12:57 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm get off my lawn old now and living the suburban dream, but once a Berkeley pedestrian always a Berkeley pedestrian, and I still take pleasure in walking in front of cars. Nice song.
posted by Edward L at 1:29 PM on April 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


Now do the Central Valley!

Nope, I am not spending any more of my Sunday than I already have trying to find rhymes for Steinbeck, Stanislaus, Saroyan, Hmong and The Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:42 PM on April 20, 2014 [8 favorites]


rhymes for Steinbeck

Well 'malbec' just jumps out immediately I'd say.
posted by Winnemac at 3:31 PM on April 20, 2014


Is it still/always going to be okay to laugh about crack? because ... I can't.

And you should probably get offa my lawn, as well, but it's a nicely terraced piece of xeriscaping, and quite pedestrian friendly. Or something.
posted by allthinky at 3:38 PM on April 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


> Now do the Central Valley!

Well I've been goin' through a dry spell like a Yolo County summer.
Like rush hour traffic on Route 80 well it really is a bummer.
And next to you I feel so sketchy, like Stockton after sundown
Or slightly little and pathetic like the Sacramento downtown
Cause you've always been popular like a Davis commuter bike.
But you're still the kind of Northern California that I like...

posted by officer_fred at 4:59 PM on April 20, 2014 [12 favorites]


Officer Fred, I hella like that.

Hella hella hella!
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:20 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


entropicamericana: "We hella say hella in Northern California."

I am an ex-SoCal person living in the Midwest. I say "hella" too.

Am I a parallel self of myself?
posted by Samizdata at 5:50 PM on April 20, 2014


officer_fred, that is adorable.
posted by psoas at 6:07 PM on April 20, 2014


This is the first time it really hits me that the use of "crackhead" is pretty judgy and pejorative and not cute.
posted by Captain Chesapeake at 9:42 PM on April 20, 2014


that the use of "crackhead" is pretty judgy and pejorative and not cute.

Well I dunno. You got your potheads, used to also have your hopheads, your juiceheads, your acidheads, your pillheads even. I don't think hoopleheads are related but the formulation does have a pretty long history. Guess that doesn't make it nice though.

As far as finding crack funny or not... if they didn't want it to sound funny they shouldn't have given it a funny name.
posted by hap_hazard at 10:04 PM on April 20, 2014


I am an ex-SoCal person living in the Midwest. I say "hella" too.

Back in the day, there were occasional micro outbreaks of "hella" in SoCal spread by individuals traveling up north. Some responded to the merciless mocking and successfully fought it off. Others stubbornly stuck with it and spread it further.

I wonder what the geographical "hella" breakdown looks like in the global age. Like "How 'no worries' infected American English", memetic, affected language can leap oceans.
posted by Celsius1414 at 1:49 AM on April 21, 2014


"You don't call women goddesses/But you still treat us fine" is going on my OKCupid profile under "You should message me if..." RIGHT NOW.
posted by rhiannonstone at 11:31 AM on April 21, 2014


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