Junko Sakurada -- Santa Monica no Kaze（サンタモニカの風）

My experience with California has just involved three cities: downtown Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, and they all have their own distinct personalities. My personal favourite (and I hope Larry is reading this) is the City by the Bay because of those hills, some great food, mild climate and Fisherman's Wharf. Plus it doesn't hurt that Starfleet Headquarters is (or perhaps will be?) situated there (sorry, that was rather geeky of me).

But Santa Monica is a place in the Golden State that I've never visited. My only images of the city include swinging palm trees and blue sky, but wouldn't that be true for a lot of places along the western coast of California?

For Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）, apparently it's a place for her to beckon her beau to come and visit. According to Yu Aku's（阿久悠）lyrics in her 26th single "Santa Monica no Kaze" (The Winds of Santa Monica) from February 1979, she's waiting at that resort hotel in the beachfront city for her boyfriend to show up. He just has to phone her and she'll be copacetic. Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）came up with the pleasing music of the times...I've heard this arrangement with some aidoru music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It sounds innocent, tropical and now nostalgic at the same time. The good ol' days, you might say.

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/%E3%82%B5%E3%83%B3%E3%82%BF%E3%83%A2%E3%83%8B%E3%82%AB%E3%81%AE%E9%A2%A8-original-cover-art-single/259167170?l=en

To be honest, I don't think Sakurada had the most stable of vocals when she was singing live so you can listen to a part of the recorded version at iTunes. "Santa Monica no Kaze" got as high as No. 24 on the charts and placed 99th in the yearly Oricon rankings for 1979.