14 Songs for Winter

“Footsteps in the Snow” (Claude Debussy)
Written by French composer Claude Debussy on December 27, 1909, this piano prelude is perhaps the quintessential piece of classical music concerning winter (alongside Franz Schubert’s Winterreise.) The slow, soft tones move from D minor to E minor to F minor–a melancholy, moody tune.

“Heart of the North” (Basil Kirchin)
Where Debussy’s piano prelude paints winter across a French rural landscape, the centerpiece of British experimental musician Basil Kirchin’s 1966 library music LP Abstractions of the Industrial North is a panoramic motion picture of winter in London. Flute, harpsichord, organ, and vibraphones sound like a pigeon flying over the billowing smokestacks, city lights, and foggy skies.

“Winter is Blue” (Vashti Bunyan)
Vashti Bunyan’s 1966 song contains crestfallen, forlorn lyrics such as “I am alone/waiting for nothing/If my heart freezes/I won’t feel the breaking.” However, the music decorating these words is delicate and dreamlike.

“Chapter 24” (Pink Floyd)
One of the very first tracks created (recorded February 27, 1967) for Pink Floyd’s psychedelic debut Piper at the Gates of Dawn, this is not only my favorite song on the album, it is also my favorite song that Syd Barrett (born January 6, 1946) ever wrote. Inspired by the I Ching (the ancient Chinese Book of Changes), “Chapter 24” is the band at their most deeply mystical and spiritual. Opening with Roger Waters’ gong and Nick Mason’s crash cymbals and tubular bells, Syd Barrett sings directly from the divination text while Richard Wright’s Farfisa organ, Hohner Pianet, and harmonium surrounds the song with a glowing, heavenly soundscape as he and Syd Barrett’s vocals ascend at the end.

“All movement is accomplished in six stages
And the seventh brings return
For seven is the number of the young light
It forms when darkness is increased by one
Change return success
Going and coming without error
Action brings good fortune
Sunset
The time is with the month of winter solstice
When the change is due to come
Thunder in the earth
The course of heaven
Things cannot be destroyed once and for all
Sunset
Sunrise”

“Winter Lady” (Leonard Cohen)
Released on December 27, 1967, Leonard Cohen’s debut record remains my favorite of his albums because of its cinematic music and poetic lyrics, especially “Winter Lady”, with its delicate flute and guitar. “Winter Lady” is my favorite Leonard Cohen song, which has a devastating effect during the death of Warren Beatty’s character in the howling wind while Julie Christie’s character stares into the patterns on her opium pipe in the finale of Robert Altman’s 1971 wintry Western McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

“Well, I lived with a child of snow
When I was a soldier
And I fought every man for her
Until the nights grew colder
She used to wear her hair like you
Except when she was sleeping
And then she’d weave it on a loom
Of smoke and gold and breathing
And why are you so quiet now
Standing there in the doorway?
You chose your journey long before
You came upon this highway”

“Love in Ice Crystals” (The Sallyangie)
An acid folk gem from brother and sister Mike and Sally Oldfield’s 1969 record Children of the Sun, Sally Oldfield’s altered, trembling, trippy, wavering vocals spin a spellbinding song.

“While the snow is falling coloured through
The windy world outside the crystal window
And the snowy wind is breathing sounds
Of icicles”

“St. John the Gambler” (Townes Van Zandt)
A stark song by the Texas troubadour from his 1969 record Our Mother the Mountain, “St. John the Gambler” contains a cinematic, shivering string section that surrounds Townes Van Zandt’s haunting, melancholy lyrics about a lost woman wandering through a wintry wasteland. (Read full album review here)

“Winter howled high around the mountain’s breast
And the cold of a thousand snows
Lay heaped upon the forest’s leaf
But the road was long beneath her feet
She followed her frozen breath
In search of a certain St. John the Gambler
Stumbling to her death”

“Feast of Stephen” (Mike Heron)
Mike Heron (born December 27, 1942) is known to most music listeners as one half of the psychedelic folk duo Incredible String Band. His solo debut Smiling Men with Bad Reputations deserves to be heard by a much wider audience, especially this classic hidden gem that is not only my favorite song on the album–it is one of my favorite songs of all time. Recorded during December 1970, “Feast of Stephen” (named for the day after Christmas, December 26), this is the soundtrack to a New Year’s Eve party and contains Mike Heron’s most poetic lyrics and John Cale’s instrumental arrangements at their most genius. This track is John Cale’s absolute best, with him on piano, guitar, bass, and viola and himself, Liza Strike, and Sue & Sunny on backing vocals.

“When winter came this year
She found me well prepared for her
The flame well fed with pine
Shuttered windows, oak wood doors
Snow lies deep
With friends unseen
I will light my eyes
To Venus green
When the midnight skies rise
She flies”

“Rain and Snow” (Pentangle)
Jacqui McShee (born December 25, 1943) leads her fellow bandmates Bert Jansch on banjo, John Renbourn on electric guitar, Danny Thompson on double bass, and Terry Cox on drums and tambourine through this traditional folk song that is timeless and toe-tapping.

“Winter Song” (Midwinter)
A hidden gem from this British folk band’s obscure 1972 record The Waters of Sweet Sorrow, “Winter Song” sounds like a medieval fairy tale.

“White swans flying through the snow
Who can tell me where they go
Dreams of castles and candles and wine
Tall trees reaching to the sky
Icy fingers…………”

“No End” (Sandy Denny)
The magnificently poignant closing track from Sandy Denny’s (born January 6, 1947) elegiac 1974 record Like an Old Fashioned Waltz. Sandy Denny is considered the greatest female folk singer of all time and this song, with its poetic lyrics, shows why. It feels like her epitaph, although she would not pass away until four years later during her tragic death at the young age of only 31 years old. A cinematic, shivering string section surrounds her powerful vocals. Masterpiece.

“They said that it was snowing
In astounded tones upon the news
I wonder why they’re always so surprised
Because every year it snows
Frozen images of snow plows
As they churn along the motorways
I haven’t had no boots to wear
Or any loot to spare
For days and days
I’ve traveled more than forty miles today
I must have grown some wings
It’s strange how time just seems to fly away
I can’t remember things
The snows are here
And how the time it slips away”

“Where the Geese Go” (The Verve)
An atmospheric, hypnotic, mesmerizing song by The Verve (a B-side from their Storm in Heaven sessions) that cocoons the listener in a wintry womb of echoing guitars and vocals, psychedelic production, and swirling soundscapes. (Read full album review here)

“Flowers in December” (Mazzy Star)
Mazzy Star’s melancholy song of lost love during the winter season is tastefully arranged with David Roback’s acoustic guitar, a guest violinist, and Hope Sandoval’s harmonica and heartbreaking lyrics and vocals.

“Winter Now” (Broadcast)
Trish Keenan tragically died at the age of only 42 years old on January 14, 2011. This childlike, delicate, enchanting song feels like her epitaph. Masterpiece.

“Snow lies all around
There’s no sense of doubt
You are the only one

To keep me sane
When all is wrong
Oh, my heart
Waits in winter now
Deep in every dream
Though you’re far from me
There in the deepest snow
I only wanted you to know
Falling quietly
There reminding me
Though it’s just a dream
You’re closer than you’ve ever been”

by Mark Lager