It's Behind The Songs again
and today we're diving into "California!"
And I think I'm even at a place in life where I don't cry when I talk about it!
A few years ago--almost four years ago now--
my band and I went on tour to Southeast Asia.
It was the last tour of my Elements album and I was super super excited.
We played the first show in Indonesia, and then immigration people showed up
and they took our passports and they didn't tell us why.
I'm trying to do this super fast 'cause I don't want this to be like a 30 minute long video.
The boiled down version is that there had been a mishap with our visas--unbeknownst to us--
and therefore we had broken the law.
And they were like, "So, this is the crime you committed. The punishment is 5 years in jail."
The thing is, when it happened, I was like "Oh there's been a terrible misunderstanding..."
"We have the right visas, it was in the contract,"
"it was all signed, I think this is all a misunderstanding..."
Long story short--none of that matters.
And therefore we were looking at potential jail time, and it was terrifying.
We lived in a hotel.
We were there for a hundred days--we ended up moving near the end
but it was this strange time in life where there was absolutely no certainty, and so much fear.
We didn't know if or when we would ever go home.
I didn't know if I would ever see my family again.
Like if I went to jail--who knows what happens once you go to jail?
I might not go home.
I might go to jail.
Meanwhile, I couldn't talk about any of this on the internet because
everyone that was advising us was like--if you go public and this
becomes a big bad thing, you'll probably just go to jail right now.
So just don't talk about it.
Cancel your tour.
So I cancel the tour and it couldn't say why
And then we spent the next 100 days trying to find out how to get home
and we're bringing it all these different lawyers, and talking to different people back home
Like, is there anything anyone can do?
And there was nothing to do except wait and just see what happened.
Mental health was a struggle.
I already struggle with mental health, and then being put in a
situation like this where everything is stripped from you
Days were very difficult.
I'm going to talk about this again for "For Now" also,
so I won't go too crazy into it, but it was a very crazy time,
that was very very difficult.
And then I had this magic little two weeks that I'll talk about more in "For Now"
but there was this blip in the middle where I felt like I could write
and I wrote two songs and it was "California" and "For Now."
I wrote it in a stairwell in the hotel where we lived
and then I remember Jesse coming in and playing it for him
and both of us kind of just losing it.
'Cause it was way too real.
I probably just told the story the worst I've ever done it.
I wrote a blog post about it.
If you google "Kina Grannis 100 days in Jakarta"
I did a written account of the things that happened and
everything I learned and all that stuff.
So if you want to know more about it, you can read it because I think that was a bad job.
Craziest experience of my life,
learned 80 billion things,
cried so much, and also I'm so grateful for it.
That's that.
So for the first half of being stuck there
I couldn't even bear to think about touching my guitar.
So then by the time I could-- and I'll talk more about how I got there in the next episode
By the time I could, I think the thing that was so powerful
It was one of the first times, in this whole experience,
that I was able to really process some emotion-- outside of crying--
which don't worry, I did a lot of that, too.
Getting to take all of this pain and fear and longing
and getting to put it into a song was just really helpful.
Songs have always been really therapeutic for me
and this one was definitely one of them.
So yeah, it was hard and it was also really helpful for me.
It's about missing home and missing my family
and longing for things, so badly, that I have no control over having again,
and at the same time, trying to be okay with that fully.
Because if I wasn't okay with that, I would break.
So I had to somehow hold all of this longing and sadness and fear
and then also hold that it's okay.
That I can hurt this much, and it's okay.
And I can miss you this much, and it's okay.
And I might never see you again, and I will be okay.
Like I had to go that deep with it because I was mentally preparing for
if I go to jail, and I live there for who-knows-how-long,
I need to be able to protect my mind.
And so I was like, if that happens, I just have to meditate all day long
and become enlightened,
and it's going to be okay.
I had to be really optimistic, and holding all my pain.
Because I wasn't going to deny myself the pain.
It was so sad to miss my family and not know when I would ever go home.
So the song starts with the lyrics:
"Hey there, California.
I can hear you when I wake up.
In the distance, like the ocean, Calling me back to your side
Holding my breath in the night
I listen again for your song"
And that's just like this cycle that I was in.
Every moment I'm thinking about home
and every moment I'm thinking about when I'm going to get home.
I felt the giant ocean between us.
I felt almost like I could look out and know there would be an ocean,
and then somewhere, on the way way way other side of that ocean, was home.
And every night I went to bed thinking--"Is tomorrow the day?"
"Could tomorrow be the day? I shouldn't think that, that's going to hurt."
"It's probably not going to be tomorrow."
and it was this thing, and then you wake up and it's like
I'm here. I'm still here.
Ooh, I want to go home. Oh I wonder if I'm ever going to go home.
It felt like it was impossible that would actually ever happen.
So when I shot it I was like,
I don't feel like it's even right to make a fancy music video for this song
'cause this song is just raw and not fancy and it's not trying to do anything
It was just this emotional dump.
I was like, I think I just need to go sit on the coast
I need to touch California
by the ocean that I was longing to go across
and just sing this song.
Thank you guys again for watching and listening!
You can go listen to "California" wherever you listen to music,
and there will be more of these soon.
You guys are so awesome if you're actually watching these,
I know it's a huge time investment,
but it means a lot to get to dive into these and continue celebrating "In The Waiting"
before we move on to new song babies,
so thank you guys so much, and I hope you're well,
and I'm sending you lots and lots of love and I'll talk to you later.
Okay, bye!