They Call the Wind Maria They Call the Wind Maria "They Call the Wind Maria" is an American popular song with lyrics written by Alan J. Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe for their 1951 Broadway musical, "Paint Your Wagon", which is set in the California Gold Rush. Rufus Smith originally sang the song on Broadway, and Joseph Leader was the original singer in London's West End. It quickly became a runaway hit, and during the Korean War, the song was among the "popular music listened to by the troops". Vaughn Monroe and his Orchestra recorded the song in 1951, and it was among the
They Call the Wind Maria factor that motivated U.S. military meteorologists to start the informal practice of giving women's names to storms in the Pacific during World War II. The practice became official in 1945. In 1953, a similar system of using women's names was adopted for North Atlantic storms. This continued until 1979, when men's names were incorporated into the system. Although Stewart's novel is set in 1935, the novel and its impact on meteorology later inspired Lerner and Lowe to write a song for their play about the California gold rush, and like Stewart, they too gave a wind storm the name "Maria",