Sonoma County composer writes post-fire love song to Santa Rosa

A local composer has written a love song to Santa Rosa for Christmas.

David Benjamin Gruenbaum says he wrote "I Love Santa Rosa" as a way to lift people's spirits after the deadly October wildfires.

"The holidays will be a difficult time for many families who have lost everything," said 13-year Santa Rosa resident David Benjamin Gruenbaum. "I wrote this song to remind everyone of who we are and what we have."

As the owner, along with his wife, Heather, of an SAT and ACT-prep business, Gruenbaum tutored many students who lived in Coffey Park and Fountaingrove, two neighborhoods devastated by the wildfires.

"I would go to a house 20 times or 40 times and now I'm in front of the house and I can't even picture where I sat with the kids at the table," said Gruenbaum

The song is gaining in popularity, the video viewed more than 1,300 times since it was posted to YouTube on Dec. 7. The tourism board Visit Santa Rosa is even using it in a social media campaign to encourage people to vacation in the area.

"We've embarked on an aggressive campaign to dispel some of the myths and rumors that Wine Country doesn't exist (due to the fires)," said Brad Calkins, director of Visit Santa Rosa. "It's a great song even without the circumstances at hand going back to what Pete Stringfellow did a few years ago," he said.

Stringfellow wrote a popular song about the city called "Santa Rosa" in 2009.

"We live in the most beautiful area of the world and I wanted to write a song that demonstrated our gorgeous city and community strength," said Gruenbaum, who says he's been "amazed" at the response to the song.

All of the money generated by the song, which will be available for download in early 2018, will go to charity.

See the video here:

For more songs about Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, check out Pete Stringfellow's song, "Santa Rosa," Petaluma Pete's song, "Sonoma Strong Song," and Mark Beynon and Joe Label's song, “Everything.”