I shouldn't complain about winter. I live in Nashville, Tennessee where 3 or 4 inches is a huge snowfall and a mere dusting is enough to close schools. Last week, a 4" snowfall that ended by late Monday morning had the metro Nashville schools closed for the entire week. A few days later, 8 or 9 inches of snow in NYC was not enough to keep the kids home and my grown kids experienced snowfalls of 2 feet in Connecticut and Massachusetts. A friend on Long Island said he needed the temperature about 50 degrees warmer to feel human again and another friend in New Jersey just said it was so depressing. When I worked, I always hated January and February. It would be dark and cold when I left the house in the morning and dark and cold when I got home. I can't imagine living in a place like Syracuse which, according to last night's NBC News, has already been hit with 113 inches of snow this winter. I did bring my back saver snow shovel when I moved here but my main means of dealing with southern snow is a broom. It can get pretty cold so I'm glad to still have my down jacket.
Instead of complaining, I'll mention some songs about winter, other than Christmas songs or songs usually found on holiday albums like "Baby, It's Cold Outside". Winter songs often reflect themes of loneliness and loss. There are not too many songs about winter so for the sake of this post, the word "winter" does not have to appear in the title. Songs that mention any of the winter months can be considered as well as those that mention snow (with one notable exception), since I think it's safe to say that most snow falls during the winter months. I'll quote the lyrical reference to winter or snow as I'll feel necessary. The list is not meant to be all inclusive. If an artist I can't bear to listen to has a winter song, I won't mention the tune here. BTW, I recently posted (10/1/10) an article on Autumn/Fall songs.
Don McLean's "Winter Has Me in Its Grip" is the first song that comes to mind for me. It was an album track from his 1974 LP, "Homeless Brother". The chorus begins with the title and continues "Think I'll take a summer trip, on a sunny sailing ship, where the shells lie in the sand". The first verse is "I feel so lonely, I'm too young to feel this old". (The last line made me think of Garth Brooks, a fan of Don's.) The last verse is "I try to run from winter, like the spring and summer run to fall, but when the weather's in you, there's no hiding place at all." Many music fans would immediately recognize another McLean composition, "American Pie", by the line "but February made me shiver, with every paper I'd deliver". The first verse of Vincent ends "catch the breeze and the winter chills, in colors on the snowy linen land". Maybe growing up north of NYC in New Rochele is responsible for these wintry lyrics.
Simon & Garfunkel recorded some famous winter songs, all written solely by Paul Simon before their relationship got frosty. "A Hazy Shade of Winter" goes "look around, leaves are brown, and the sky is a hazy shade of winter". In "The Boxer", the fourth verse is "Then I'm laying out my winter clothes, and wishing I was gone, going home where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me." "I Am A Rock" famously begins, "A winter's day in a deep and dark December".
Anne Murray's breakout song "Snowbird", written by Gene Maclellan, begins "Beneath this snowy mantle cold and clean" and the first half of the chorus goes "Spread your tiny wings and fly away, and take the snow back with you, where it came from on that day".
David Nail's "Mississippi", written by Scooter Carusoe, Dan Colehour and Chuck Leavell, opens with "I ain't never seen the snow fall on the Delta, like the one that's gonna cover New York tonight, but it sure do remind me of those miles and miles of cotton, long ago but not forgotten, that's a southern man's field of white." Love this opening verse on one of the best songs from Nail's debut cd, "I'm About to Come Alive".
John Denver's "Two Shots" from his Windsong album (see my post of 12/7/10) begins with the quirky refrain, "I took two shots, got no ducks, and cold, cold hands". The second verse begins, "When I spoke of a cold winter's morning, a duck blind and a river of gray, the sound of the snow softly falling". Looking through my old JD LP's, I also found "Wrangle Mountain Song" from his "Spirit" album of '76. The middle of the third verse goes "McCarthy lies asleep beside the glacier, It's colder now, winter's in the air". I found another Denver song mentioned on a cool website, coolrain44.wordpress.com. The song is "Winter" and it begins "It's cold and it's getting colder, it's gray and white and winter all around, and oh, I must be getting older, and all this snow is tryin' to get me down."
"California Dreamin' " by the Mamas and Papas in the first verse says "I've been for a walk on a winter's day" and concludes, "California dreamin', on such a winter's day." Papa John and Mama Michelle Phillips wrote the song.
Gretchen Peters wrote one of Trisha Yearwood's best songs, "On a Bus to St. Cloud". It begins "On a bus to St. Cloud, Minnesota, I thought I saw you there, with the snow falling down around you, like a silent prayer."
Melinda Schneider's "Cootamundra Wattle", written by John Williamson, has a down under take on winter as the chorus begins "Hey it's July and the winter sun is shining, and the Cootamundra Wattle is my friend". (see my post on Melinda of 9/15/10.)
The Zac Brown Band's "Colder Weather" begins "She'd trade Colorado if he'd take her with him,
closes the door before the winter lets the cold in". It's a current country hit so there are plenty of reviews on-line. Songwriters are ZB, Wyatt Durrette, Levi Lowrey and Coy Bowles.
In Gordon Lightfoot's "Song for a Winter's Night" from his 1967 album,"The Way I Feel", the first verse begins "The lamp is burnin' low upon my table top, the snow is softly falling". The verse concludes "I would be happy just to hold the hands I love, upon this winter night with you." Another Lightfoot winter song is "Ten Degrees and Getting Colder" from his 1971 "Summer Side of Life" album. It has the line "for his feet are almost frozen" in addition to "It's ten degrees and getting colder, down by Boulder Dam today".
The liner notes to Alison Krauss's "A Hundred Miles or More" cd mention that "Get Me Through December", written by Gordie Sampson and Fred Lavery, was originally recorded for Celtic fiddler Natalie McMaster's "In My Hand" album in 1999. AK provided the vocals. Lines 3 and 4 of the first verse go "For the long bitter nights and the wild winter's day, my heart has grown cold, my love stored away."
Merle Haggard was also the writer for his 1973 hit "If We Make It Through December". The first verse begins with the title and continues "every thing's gonna be alright, I know, it's the coldest time of winter, and I shiver when I see the falling snow".
Dick Curless's "A Tombstone Every Mile" is a winter tale of truckers in Maine written by Dan Fulkerson. "When it's winter up in Maine, better check it over twice, that Hainesville road is just a ribbon of ice." The chorus: "It's a stretch of road up north in Maine, That's never, ever, ever seen a smile, If they buried all the truckers lost in them woods, There'd be a tombstone every mile, Count 'em off, there'd be a tombstone every mile".
Linda Ronstadt's "Winter Light" by Z. Preisner, E. Kaz & LR has the line "Wandering in the winter light, the wicked and the sane".
James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James" is the exception to my snow rule. It doesn't qualify since the lyrics refer to a specific date that actually occurs in the fall. "Now the first of December was covered with snow, and so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston, Lord, the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting".
OK. Before you say anything I admit that including some of these songs as winter songs may be a stretch but writing about them is a good way to while away the winter weeks. What are your favorite winter songs?
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