La La Land (song)

Name	La La Land
Album/single	Shihad
Length	2.30
Alternative titles
First live performance
Recorded	June/July 1996
Writer/composer	Shihad
Producer	GGGarth

Additional Information

Song meaning as told by Jon: "It's about our time spent in Los Angeles, and enjoying it to a certain degree, but also realising how superficial it was in comparison to my hometown of Wellington. The first verse is about hopping into a cab in LA and having the guy ask me if I was new here, and telling me about his wife who had been put in prison, and then saying, 'this town is terrible, it's the land of everything and nothing at all'. And I thought 'yeah, there's a song in there'. The second verse is about a party I went to and met this girl who was quite high up in a company, in a trade magazine in the music industry, and she was explaining how she found these psycho-active pills, and she said 'taking them, it was like coming into a clearing, it was the first time in my life when I felt really myself', and I was thinking, 'how could you say that? That's insane'. A lot of people I met were taking uppers to get up in the morning, and downers to get down in the evening, it was just weird. It's a fast pace in LA". Rip It Up, Oct. 1996

Also: "'La La Land is about our time in LA - obviously. After Killjoy we'd gone over and toured Europe. We ended up in LA with a fucking bollocks record deal with a company that had no distribution in America. It was my first experience with LA. I found the place to be full of contradictions, and soulless. There was this girl I met who was my first experience with anyone on antidepressants. That shows you how old this song is. It was my first meeting with someone who was on antidepressants and she would explain to me how she was fucking great now that she was on pills. Maybe I was naive, but I'd never met anyone like that before. I had this taxi ride. The taxi driver's wife was in jail and he still loved her, and that was the first thing he said to me. I was like, 'this place is mad'. Everything was fast and furious. I found the whole thing quite alien, being from Wellington, New Zealand. I was trying to get that into a song." Rip It Up, Aug-Sep 2010.

Lyrics

The night speeds through at its breakneck pace
Gotta run to keep up, gotta keep on the case
And the people that you meet, well they're speeding too
I get up, I get in a cab
The driver says he loves his wife, she's in the slammer
He's got some advice 'cause I'm new here

We're in the land, we're in the land
The land of everything and nothing at all
Wait till it takes you by the hand
It's got it all, but it's got no soul
We're in the land, la la la land
The land of everything and nothing at all
I'm sorry, I do not understand

Finally get to the place where I'm supposed to be
I met a girl and a girl met me
And she's let me in on just how to see the light here
She says her life was in disarray
Till she found these pills that took the pain away
Wait a minute, something's not quite right