Top Five Tuesday :: Songs about Winter
In the spirit of December, and in the wistful wish for Winter from a Southern California girl who sometimes longs for snow, this week’s Tuesday feature is my top five songs about Winter. Grab a blanket, or winter coat and scarf, pour yourself a cup of something warm, sit back, turn the volume on up, push play and enjoy these Wintertime songs.
5. Winter :: The Rolling Stone
“And I wish I’d been out in California,
when the lights on all the Christmas trees went out.
But I been burnin’ my bell, book and candle,
and the restoration plays have all gone ’round.”
So many songs about cold winters and wishes to be in California, which I do understand, of course, as the weather is temperate and mild here nearly all year ’round. But, the time I spent in the Midwest, though the snow was tough to deal with some days, I did enjoy December with the icicles in the trees and the white blanket of snow on the ground. It was beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful, and taught me what it means to have memories associated with seasons, and what a real winter feels like.
4. Summer Kisses, Winter Tears :: Julee Cruise
“Happy hours, lonely years,
but I guess I can’t complain,
for I still recall the Summer sun,
through all the Winter rain.”
We saw Until the End of the World together, holding hands in the darkened theatre, and we talked about it for hours after, over cups of coffee, and later shots of whiskey. We had a thing for alternate realities, and waxed philosophical on the what if’s and how’s of our possible other lives, wondering if we would meet again, or had met before. When the night was over you walked me to my car, our warm breath causing visible steam to billow out between us, it was there, in-between kisses that you told me you loved me for the first time.
3. Hazy Shade of Winter :: The Bangles
“Time, time, time,
see what’s become of me.”
A cover song I personally prefer to the orginal, possibly due to the memories I have attached to the song, and the time of my life that it hit the airwaves. We used to play this in the car on our way into Hollywood, singing-a-long together, at the top of our lungs, on our way to something new, someone new, somewhere new. We were getting ourselves lost and found, all at the same time, wrapped up in faux fur and long, cotillion style gloves, clove cigarettes, and chemically induced refrains.
2. A Long December :: Counting Crows
“And it’s one more day up in the canyon,
and it’s one more night in Hollywood.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean,
I guess I should.”
Another winter song that includes wishings of being in California, this time more out of longing for someone residing there, and all the regrets of past Decembers, past winters, past mistakes. This wound up on a mix tape sent to me from the other side of California, in it you slipped a note where you called me the queen of Hollywood, but that was never really me. My heart belongs to no particular place, my soul forever a gypsy; my heart only belongs to people, and to music.
1. Winter :: Tori Amos
“When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?”
I have been told I like to take on projects with people, that I attract the broken and the bruised that have promise and talent that I cannot help but see shining through, and that I cannot resist trying to support, and encourage. All the love I can muster, all the love that I have to give, I shower on these people, trying to warm them from within and help them to believe in themselves the way I believe in them. More times than often I wind up feeling so very alone in this endeavor, and very, very cold and alone.
