"Going to California" is the penultimate song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin on their fourth album, released in 1971. The song's wistful folk-style sound, with Robert Plant on lead vocals, acoustic guitar by Jimmy Page and mandolin by John Paul Jones, contrasts with the heavy electric-amplified rock on several of the album's other tracks.

The song is reportedly about singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell, with whom Plant and Page were both infatuated. Plant sings "They say she plays guitar/and cries and sings". In live performances of the song, Plant would often say the name "Joni" after this stanza:

:To find a Queen without a King,

They say she plays guitar and cries, and she sings

In an interview he gave to Spin magazine in 2002, Plant stated that the song "might be a bit embarrassing at times lyrically, but it did sum up a period of my life when I was 22."[1]

At Led Zeppelin concerts the band performed this song during their acoustic sets. One live version, from Led Zeppelin's performance at Earls Court in 1975, is featured on disc 2 of the Led Zeppelin DVD. It was also performed on Plant's solo tours during 1988/1989 and at the Knebworth Silver Clef show in 1990. He played it again on his "Mighty Rearranger" tour, with additions of a double bass and a synthesiser

Never the Bride recorded a version of "Going to California" for the 1995 Led Zeppelin tribute album Encomium.

The main vocal melody inspired Pearl Jam's 1998 song "Given to Fly". Also, Fuel did a remake of this song on their album Something Like Human. Aaron Lewis of Staind covered this song in a charity solo show in his old high school, Longmeadow High (link to the performance).

This was the 3,000,000th song played on WBLM, a radio station based in Portland, Maine