Santa Ana Winds (Day 178)

Dinosaur Jr - "This Is All I Came To Do"
Tobacco - "Little Pink Riding Hood"
Matthew Sweet & Susannah Hoffs - "Monday, Monday"
The Wedding Present - "Santa Ana Winds"
Full disclosure: This is Wednesday's playlist. I know, like my New Year's resolution to hit the gym, my promise to blog daily has already hit a snag. Wednesday and Thursday were hectic at work. (Layoffs didn't help. I'm fine, thanks for asking.) And then I left the iPod in the office! But rather than leave you hanging another day, here's something from the week even if it's not from "today". (It's shorter than usual due again to real-life conversation with my new commuting friend.) So, back to the music: This song comes from a 2008 album that could have at least made my honorable mentions list from the Best Albums of The Year post. But really my initial excitement about the record quickly waned. Still, good stuff. The title places this as a very L.A. record and the cover (a palm tree and neon lights) pretty much confirms it. But it dawned on me I realized I don't really know exactly what the Santa Ana winds are. Oh, Mr. Wikipedia....

The Santa Ana winds are strong, extremely dry offshore winds that characteristically sweep through in Southern California and northern Baja California in late fall into winter. They can range from hot to cold, depending on the prevailing temperatures in the source regions, the Great Basin and upper Mojave Desert. However, the winds are remembered most for the hot dry weather (often the hottest of the year) that they bring in the fall.

But, wait, there's more! These beloved winds have been featured in quite a bit of popular culture, especially music. I think this is kinda fascinating so I'm going to go ahead and show you the list collected on Wikipedia of mentions of the winds in popular song - - from this decade alone!

• The song "Mansfield" from Elton John's 2001 album Songs from the West Coast mentions a "California moon" and contains the lyrics "The Santa Ana winds blew warm into your room".
• Bad Religion mentions the winds a few times, using their nickname "murder winds", "St. Anne's skirts are billowing" and the line "The fans of Santa Ana are withering" in the song "Los Angeles Is Burning" from the 2004 album The Empire Strikes First. "When the hills of Los Angeles are burning/ Palm trees are candles in the murder winds/ So many lives are on the breeze/ Even the stars are ill at ease/ And Los Angeles is burning."
• The song "Catch My Disease" (2005) by Ben Lee has the lyrics "She told me about the winds from Santa Ana/ And that's the way I like it."
• Danish band Mew's song "The Zookeeper's Boy" from their 2005 album And the Glass Handed Kites refers to the winds in the lyric "Santa Ana winds bring seasickness."
• Jason Mraz's unreleased "Silent Love Song" refers to the Santa Ana winds.

All that and this Wedding Present song isn't even on the list! But here's the best bit of arcane Santa Ana wind culture I learned in the last five minutes: In Cycle 11 of America's Next Top Model featured a shoot where contestants portrayed natural disasters. Contestant Analeigh Tipton portrayed the winds. Now you know.
Nada Surf - "Blonde On Blonde" (live)
Bill Evans - "All Of You (Take 3)"

And then I got to work.

Today's Stats
Total songs listened to: 6
Total minutes of music (approx.): 28
Song with the most previous plays: "Santa Ana Winds", "All Of You (Take 3)" (tie) - 4
How I Rate Today's Playlist (1-10): 7
Miscellaneous factoid about my trip to work today: It (and I mean Wednesday) was a horrible rainy day and G and I missed the bus.