The Boston Herald noted The brand new "Shores of California" displayed Palmer's knack for writing bona fide pop tunes with its infectious sing-along chorus and familiar melody.[1]
The song's lyrics include the lines "that's the way Aristophanes and Homer / wrote 'the iliad' and 'lysistrata'." Despite the ordering of the lyrics, it was Aristophanes who wrote Lysistrata, and Homer who wrote The Iliad. The Dresden Dolls' official lyrics page notes this by adding to the line in the lyrics: "that's the way Aristophanes and Homer / wrote 'the iliad' and 'lysistrata' (not in that order...)".[2]
Music video
The music video for this single parodies the video[3] for David Lee Roth's version of "California Girls". It featured Amanda Palmer, Kelly, David J (an original member of the band Bauhaus), Margaret Cho, Jason Webley, as well as the Dresden Dolls's Dirty Business Brigade and other fans that had been encouraged to take part in a band newsletter that was released prior to production. The music video was directed by Andrew Bennett of Shoe String Concert Videos[4] and produced by Frank Caridi. On the official video on YouTube, it is noted that Brian was not available on the day of filming, which explains his absence from the video.
