Songfacts®:

• Long before she was writing big hits like "Beautiful" for Christina Aguilera and singing the seminal '90s hit "What's Up" as the frontwoman of 4 Non Blondes, Linda Perry spent her teen years as a homeless drug addict in San Diego, at times living in the historic Balboa Park. The song "Balboa Park" is a bleak reminder of those difficult days, which were ironically the happiest of her life because she was able to escape the pain of an abusive childhood that drove her to addiction.
  
  "Although I was a drug addict and all this stuff was happening, it was a very light time for me," Perry told Off The Record. "I loved it. I was having fun. I was so f--ked up all the time I didn't have the distractions of pain and emotional damage. I was just having fun. I was not at all an angry drunk or drug addict."
• This is the third single from Perry's 2026 solo album, Let It Die Here, which is named after a documentary about her life that debuted that summer.
• Bruce Springsteen also has a song called "Balboa Park" from 1995's The Ghost Of Tom Joad, which also tells the story of a homeless teen in dire circumstances.