Wintersongs, Special Bonus Track

One more for the series...

Hailing from the Saint Paul, Minnesota it's quite natural for a band to have a winter-themed song. With long, dark and bitterly-cold winters, the Twin Cities, as well as other cities that have cold or miserable-weather have long been fertile ground for bands. What else are you going to do? Sacked in and bored,  you sequester yourself to the basement and pick up some instruments and bang out music. Or drink. Or, in the case of Hüsker Dü, do both, and do both well.

From Flip Your Wig, the Hüsker's fourth studio album, as well as their second stellar release of 1985, is Flexible Flyer. 

Down on my Flexible Flyer
To the bottom how fast I would go
Just waiting for me under the tree
And out in the snow

A cowboy, a nurse or a fireman
There's so many things that you can be
You can set bigger goals, but set your soul
Yeah, set your soul free

Times, places and situations
Lead to an early grave
When we get there we see
Just what did we save?

If your heart is a flame burning brightly
You'll have light and you'll never be cold
And soon you will know that you just grow
You're not growing old

If the wheels of your wagon are rusty
You can paint them until they are new
You can roll down a hill, but if you can't
Then I pity you

(and the video - which sadly has nothing at all to do with sleds or winter):


Growing up in the Midwest I always had a Flexible Flyer as part of my winter arsenal of sledding devices. Sure, aluminum saucers were fun and erratic (you'd often end up facing the wrong way, speeding backwards and out of control down the hill), while molded plastic sleds always had interesting novelty gadgets like (shudder) brakes. But once the snow became packed down enough, generally after a couple of good snowfalls, coupled with a freeze/thaw cycle or two, Flexible Flyers were my go-to sleds.

I'd fastidiously file the rust off the runners and then apply whatever wax I could find, generally rubbing an old candle along the now-smooth rails. Yes, as a 10 year-old, I lived in a Swix-free home.

With our neighborhood adjacent to a local country club, there were plenty of moderately-steep and long hills to descend. But the best sledding tracks were always made on the steep, curving and shaded closed-for-the-season boat launch at a nearby lake. My friends and I spent hours in the snow packing and shaping the most-perfect track this side of Lillehammer. Wipeouts were inevitable, as was losing a glove or moon boot when one launched off-track and into the dormant brush. And while we would always end up cold and nearly-frostbitten, we'd return the next day (or evening if school was in session), repair the track and attack it again.

Nowdays this is the only Flexible Flyer I still own, a small ornament that was made by one-time employer Pacific Cycle when they owned the brand:

Wintersongs, Pt. V

Reflective, intimate and somewhat plaintive, Robyn Hitchcock’s Winter Love comes from his primarily-acoustic1984 release I Often Dream of Trains. Showcasing a quieter side of the eccentric songwriter, the track title alone should be a good tipoff that it’s a fine winter song.

Robyn Hitchcock – Winter Love

It's the darkest time of year
Crystal branches everywhere
As the colours drain away
You alone are far away
Leaves of frost upon the trees
Lovers falling on their knees
Curtains parting in the night
Let me in your sweet delight
Where the garden used to be

Now a different world I see
For one second all I know
Everything is made of snow
First from white and then to blue
Pink to purple lost to view
It's the darkest time of year
Winter love is almost here

Wintersongs, Pt. IV

This song’s simple acoustic guitar strumming introduction is enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. And once the lovely Ms. Case’s siren-like vocals kick in I’m lost in the song. It’s clearly one of the standout tracks from her breakthrough 2002 record Blacklisted that saw her move beyond the simple alt-country stylings of her earlier efforts and into a darker, deeper, haunted, Judy Garland-as-channeled-by-David-Lynch type of vibe. (Did I use enough descriptions there?) Well-suited to late night winter drives when abundant snow flurries whip past the windshield on lonely two-lane country roads, her velvet voice and the rich production and arrangement keeping my soul warm.

(horrible fan-made video since she never made one for the song):

Neko Case – Stinging Velvet

Rain falls, I fix my eyes
Let go of the focus and I blur out all the lines
Just to remember, remember

Crying 'cause it's not my fault
Water through my lashes look just like Christmas lights
And I still remember, remember

Cold and shivering
Cold and shivering
Cold and shivering warm

Sing please, rock me to sleep
Quiet as a canyon up under heaven's eaves
I surrender, surrender

Downstairs the furnace swells
Safe from all the horrors in your stinging velvet arms
And I surrender, surrender

Cold and shivering
Cold and shivering

Wintersongs, Pt. III

Hailing from the gateway to Wisconsin’s North Woods, Justin Vernon made his mark with the seminal Bon Iver release For Emma, Forever Ago. Recorded in solitude in a remote hunting cabin and released to great acclaim in 2007, Vernon followed the release with the gorgeous Blood Bank EP in 2009. Leading off the EP is the eponymous track.

With a photo of a snow-drifted car on the EP’s cover and the song leading off with a wind-blown howl, it’s difficult not to think of winter when the first few notes of Blood Bank hit like a stiff, icy wind. The fourth verse (Then the snow started falling…) depicting getting a car stuck in a snow drift undoubtedly reminds me of driving in the snow and some of the contents carried in the the winter emergency kit in my first car’s spare tire well in case of such emergencies (an old Marine Corps-issued survival blanket, flashlight, German Army surplus folding shovel and a coffee can with a candle, matches and some Power Bars.

(fan-made video, driving I-94 from from MN border to Madison)

Bon Iver – Blood Bank

Well, I met you at the blood bank
We were looking at the bags
Wondering if any of the colors
Matched any of the names we knew on the tags

You said, see look that's yours
Stacked on top with your brother's
See how the resemble one another
Even in their plastic little covers

And I said I know it well
That secret that you know but don't know how to tell
It fucks with your honor and it teases your head
But you know that it's good girl
'Cause its running you with red

Then the snow started falling
We were stuck out in your car
You were rubbing both of my hands
Chewing on a candy bar

You said, ain't this just like the present
To be showing up like this?
As a moon waned to crescent
We started to kiss

And I said I know it well
That secret that we know that we don't know how to tell
I'm in love with your honor, I'm in love with your cheeks
What's that noise up the stairs, babe?
Is that Christmas morning creaks?

And I know it well, I know it well
And I know it well, I know it
And I know it, I know it
And I know it, I know it 

Wintersongs, Pt. II

If there is one band that will forever be tied to living in North County San Diego, it’s Fleet Foxes. Even though they're from Seattle, their debut album Fleet Foxes was released in 2008, the year of our relocation. With warm and wistful Beach Boys-like harmonies, White Winter Hymnal is a remarkably beautiful and short, succinct song that sounds like little else that was in heavy rotation on the airwaves during that time.

Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal

I was following the pack all swallowed in their coats
With scarves of red tied 'round their throats
To keep their little heads
From falling in the snow
And I turned 'round and there you go
And Michael, you would fall
And turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summertime

Wintersongs, Pt. I

Being an über music dork/snob can have its down sides. For one, there is always a song playing in my head. Always. Mostly good, sometimes annoying, and in rare cases, downright wretched. I also find myself to be a “completest” as well, having to own every piece of recorded music by a given musical artist. But there are good things as well, and I love how different songs and albums play such an important part to my life over different eras of my own life.

With the changing of the seasons, my musical tastes shift. For instance, I can think of no spring since the late-80s that the eternally vernal Skylarking by XTC wasn’t played at least a dozen times. The soundtracks to summer have been incredibly varied, and so many fine pieces of music emanated from different car tape decks, CD players and iPods during road trips while exploring America – usually with a bicycle or boat or two strapped to the car’s roof racks. Autumn often sees warm Americana in heavy rotation – R.E.M., The Decemberists, Uncle Tupelo, etc. Which leads into winter.

Winter generally means Christmas music to most. And growing up I loved it and always looked forward to digging out the LPs and playing them on my parent’s bulky console stereo. But for the past ten years or so, not so much. It’s even more difficult to even get into winter at all living in a place like San Diego County. However, I still try to remember what season it is. And there are a more than a few songs that are winter-appropriate without being tied in the least to the holidays that I greatly enjoy. Allow me to bore you with the list that I’m pecking out in a germ tube 34,000 feet above the icy north Pacific ocean.

Wintersongs, Part I

Galaxie 500’s signature distant, dreamy and ethereal sound reminds me of walking on fresh, crunchy snow on a crisp, bitterly-cold and cloudless night. Their astonishing cover of Yoko Ono’s Listen, The Snow Is Falling is the highlight from their excellent 1990 swan song This Is Our Music. Starting with Dean Wareham’s gentle, echoed guitar strumming and building to a full band arrangement, with bassist Naomi Yang handling vocal duties, it’s nearly eight minutes of sonic bliss.

Galaxie 500 – Listen, The Snow Is Falling

Listen, the snow is falling o’er town,
Listen the snow is falling ev’rywhere.
Between empire state building
And between Trafalgar Square.
Listen, the snow is falling o’er town.

Listen, the snow is falling o’er town,
Listen the snow is falling ev’rywhere.
Between your bed and mine,
Between your head and my mind.
Listen, the snow is falling o’er town.

Between Tokyo and Paris,
Between London and Dallas,
Between your love and mine.
Listen, the snow is falling ev’rywhere.

Snowing, snowfall, snowfall,
Listen, listen,
Listen, baby,
Listen.