Santa Ana Winds - Santa Ana Winds in Popular Culture

Santa Ana Winds in Popular Culture

“ There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge. ”

—Raymond Chandler, "Red Wind"
  • The 1970 Tim Buckley song "Venice Beach" includes the lyrics "White heat of swaying day/ Dark slap of conga cries/ 'Come out and breathe as one'/ Salt sea and fiddles drone/ Out on the dancing stone/ While the Santanas blow/ Sing the music boats in the bay."
  • The Beach Boys song "Santa Ana Winds" appears on their 1980 album Keepin' the Summer Alive.
  • The song "Babylon Sisters" by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen from the Steely Dan album "Gaucho" (1980) has the refrain "Here come those Santa Ana winds again."
  • On Survivor's 1983 album Caught in the Game, an atmospheric song named "Santa Ana Winds" refers to a disastrous woman.
  • Steve Goodman's Santa Ana Winds, the last album released before his death in 1984, contains the song of the same name. Goodman wrote this analogy of unrequited love from the view of a man from a city where wind is understood.
  • The a cappella group The Bobs' song "Santa Ana Woman" from their 1988 album Songs for Tomorrow Morning has the line "The Santa Ana winds had come back / And the whole city of LA was acting like it had PMS."
  • The band Animal Logic recorded a song "Winds Of Santa Ana" appearing in the band's self-titled 1989 album.
  • 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."
  • British Indie Rock band, The Wedding Present released their eighth studio album, El Rey in 2008 which begins with the song "Santa Ana Winds" containing the lyrics "Outside, the Santa Ana Winds are blowing hot/Inside, some things are happening that really should not."
  • Rock band Sons of Bill have a song called "Santa Ana Winds"
  • Australian singer Ben Lee sings about a girl at a concert in Pomona telling him about the Santa Ana Winds in his 2005 single "Catch My Disease."
  • Raymond Chandler's 1938 detective story "Red Wind" opens with a description of the Santa Anas and their effect on the populace.
  • Erle Stanley Gardner (writing as A.A. Fair) described the winds in chapter 12 of his 1941 novel Double or Quits; the winds were relevant to an experiment carried out by the fictional detective who was attempting to prove whether a man's death was accidental.
  • The Santa Ana winds are the subject of a 1965 essay by Joan Didion entitled "Los Angeles Notebook," which appears in her Slouching Towards Bethlehem collection of essays.
  • The Santa Ana winds are important to the plot of the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  • The Santa Ana winds are important aspects in the 1985 novel Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis.
  • The Santa Ana winds are important to the plot of the 1999 novel White Oleander by Janet Fitch.
  • The prologue of Clive Barker's 2001 Coldheart Canyon describes in three pages how the winds "come sighing off the desert, heavy with their perfume..." in a metaphysical as well as environmental sense.
  • Several references to the winds are made in the hit TV show Beverly Hills, 90210.
  • Kitty's fear of the winds were featured in the "Date Night" episode of the ABC series Brothers & Sisters.
  • In an episode of Southland titled 'The Winds', the Santa Ana Winds are mentioned multiple times and play a key role throughout the episode.
  • The Television show Popular features the winds in Windstruck season one, episode 4.
  • The Santa Ana Winds were an important part of the plot in the 2006 movie The Holiday.
  • In Joan Didion's essay, The Santa Ana, she describes the winds effect on the local residents in a story-like manner.
  • Los Angeles native Belinda Carlisle's album Runaway Horses mentions "...kisses hotter than the Santa Ana Winds" in the song Summer Rain.
  • Everclear (band) features a track titled "Santa Ana Wind" on their 2012 album Invisible Stars. The song is an ode to living in Southern California.

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Famous quotes containing the words santa, winds, popular and/or culture:

    “I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.”
    —Shirley Temple Black (b. 1928)

    “I call to mind the navy great
    That the Greeks brought to Troye town,
    And how the boistous winds did beat
    Their ships, and rent their sails adown;
    Till Agamemnon’s daughter’s blood
    Appeased the gods that them withstood.”
    —Henry Howard, Earl Of Surrey (1517?–1547)

    “The poet will prevail to be popular in spite of his faults, and in spite of his beauties too. He will hit the nail on the head, and we shall not know the shape of his hammer. He makes us free of his hearth and heart, which is greater than to offer one the freedom of a city.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “I’ve finally figured out why soap operas are, and logically should be, so popular with generations of housebound women. They are the only place in our culture where grown-up men take seriously all the things that grown-up women have to deal with all day long.”
    —Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)