California Dreamin’ on America's Imaginary ‘Ventura Highway’

‘200 Greatest 70s Rock Songs Vol. 2’ Book Excerpt

Pacific Coast Highway, Los Angeles, 2012. The Jon B. Lovelace Collection of California Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project, Library of Congress

“Ventura Highway” was a №8 hit from America’s 1972 album Homecoming. Singer and guitarist Dewey Bunnell wrote “Ventura Highway” about his family’s trip in 1963 from Nebraska to California.

“It was about leaving,” Bunnell said on Nights with Alice Cooper. “It reminds me of the time I lived in Omaha as a kid and how we’d walk through cornfields and chew on pieces of grass. There were cold winters, and I had images of going to California. So I think in the song I’m talking to myself, frankly: ‘How long you gonna stay here, Joe?’ I really believe that ‘Ventura Highway’ has the most lasting power of all my songs.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAUUy7NMnaY

While there is no Ventura Highway on the map, Bunnell told American Songwriter that he had the Pacific Coast Highway in mind. “We took that Coast road. Call it what you want, Highway 1, Highway 101, Pacific Coast Highway. I dubbed it Ventura Highway. Because I’ve seen that name in my mind’s eye. Ventura. It was on the freeway signs.

“It was just trying to paint that picture of that place, that environment, that vibe on the West Coast. We stopped there. We got a flat tire and my dad had pulled the car off right there at the coast. We were looking at the ocean and the waves and stuff while he changed that tire.

“I spent a lot of time staring at the ocean and up at that freeway sign that said Ventura. That image just somehow stuck with me, and that’s what I pulled out as a lyric option for that song.”

Frank Mastropolo is the author of 200 Greatest 70s Rock Songs Vol. 2 and Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.