New Insights from "Back Home"

Before I started on this assignment, I had always thought that the California Dream is just about having a good, contented life by the beach. However, now I know there is so much more to it than just that.

For one, "Back Home" has shown me that the California Dream is just about being accepted into the society one is in, and feeling at home. The singer, who forsake everything he once had to get this dream, only realizes how hard it is to find loyal companions and true friends in the city of his dreams. Maybe when he left home without any of the relationships he had - broken due to his stubbornness in insisting on going to the west coast in search of the California Dream, he thought that he would find friends in California. That mi

ght have been his California Dream.

Another thing I learned is that to many people, the California is imagined as a place where one is free from judgements and shackles social normalities put on us. Just like the people from Iowa in the article "A New Perspective on the Dream" by Denise S. Spooner, the singer in "Back Home" wanted a place where he would not have to worry about living up to other people's standards. However, that did not seem to have been the case in the song, as he told us of a society where "everybody's living life in fear of falling out of line."

It seems that the subject of this song, along with many others who came to California for the dream left without a single taste of it. However, I am also certain about others who attained and lived the dream. Otherwise, why would that dream of over a hundred years be still prevalent? Personally, I still believe in the California Dream, and that anyone willing to try hard enough, and persevere long enough, can achieve it ultimately.

Back Home - Yellowcard

This is a song of disappointment in the reality of California, upon experiencing it for oneself.

The singer, having come from a far away place where the Californian Dream is something every person seemed to yearn for.

However, even with the perfect weather and landscape, he realizes it can't be further from being the perfect haven, for home is where his heart actually belongs.

"The grass is always greener on the other side" seems to be the main theme for this song. Forsaking everything he had before in pursuit of the Californian Dream, the singer realizes all that he had lost upon getting home; relationships, familiarities, friends.

Don't know what I was looking for when I went home, I found me alone
And sometimes I need someone to say, "You'll be all right. What's on your mind?"
But the water's shallow here and I am full of fear, and empty handed after two long years

Another sunny day in Californ-i-a
I'm sure back home they'd love to see it
But they don't know that what you love is ripped away
Before you get a chance to feel it

Back home I always thought I wanted so much more, now I'm not too sure
Cause sometimes I miss knowing someone's there for me and feeling free
Free to stand beside the ocean in moonlight
And light myself a smoke beneath the dark Atlantic sky

Another sunny day in Californ-i-a
I'm sure back home they'd love to see it
But they don't know that what you love is ripped away
Before you get a chance, before you get a chance to feel it

Everybody here is living life in fear of falling out of line
Tearing lives apart and breaking lots of hearts just to pass the time
And the eyes get red in the back of your head, this place will make you blind
Put it all behind me and I'll be just fine

Another sunny day beneath this cloudless sky
Sometimes I wish that it would rain here
And wash away the west coast dreaming from my eyes
There's nothing real for them to see here

Another starry night in Californ-i-a
I'm sure back home they'd love to see it
But they don't know that what you love is ripped away
Before you get a chance, before you get a chance to feel it

My Californian Dream

The Californian Dream is basically living a life of luxury and freedom in the best of weathers, with the best company-looks and personality-, contented and happy. This was the image sold to many, around the 1970s through television shows such as The Brady Bunch and other forms of media such as posters and advertisements. Many people all over the United States and the world actually longed for these conditions and were enticed by what California seemed to have to offer. For example, in the article "A New Perspective on the Dream" by Denise S. Spooner, the author states that migrants from the Midwest were drawn to California by the weather and liberal environment where they would not be judged based on their beliefs or class. Migrants from around the world, particularly Asia, must have seen the same promise of a better life in the warm west coast as well. Thus, the Californian dream also became a hope of a fresh start, a new beginning where they can forget about all the bad things that happened in the past and restart their lives.

In 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented the New Deal, the American Dream came to be a shared vision for all citizens to enjoy better lives together. It was thought to be attainable by anyone as long as he is hardworking, diligent and is steadfast in his goals and ambitions. However, over the years, it has morphed into one of fast cash and get-rich-quick scenarios. Winning game shows such as 'Wheel-of-Fortune' and 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' has indubitably become the new American Dream.

I think the difference between the American Dream and the Californian Dream presently is for many people, the former is a chancing upon fast cash and enjoying that fortune without the effort of handwork, while the latter is getting comfortable with living a relaxed lifestyle without a care. It is of course hard to differentiate the two, as every individual would have his or her own idea of the two dreams. However, I feel that even if the American Dream of fast cash is achieved, it will be fleeting as mismanaged endowments go up in thin air quickly, as seen time and again from history. The Californian Dream on the other hand is much easier to maintain. Living by the beach and just taking life in day by day, it might even be hard to get out of that lifestyle.