Written by admin
“Santa Monica” is a song written by Art Alexakis and recorded by Everclear on their 1995 album Sparkle and Fade. Boy have I always loved this song, I have always seen it as a song representing a triumph over adversity. More specifically, it seems to be a tune about conjuring the mental strength to smash through whatever is holding you back. Art himself had a troubled childhood. He was abandoned by his father at age five and suffered through the suicide of his older brother years later. Then, when he was still a teenager his girlfriend committed suicide as well. He responded by jumping off the Santa Monica pier in his own suicide attempted. According to the man himself, the spirit of his older brother pushed him to survive this terrible incident. Santa Monica, California was also the town Art grew up in and served as a source of mental strength for him, with its palm trees and its beautiful ocean calling him to “leave the fire behind / swim out past the breakers / and watch the world die.”
