The weather outside is so frightful there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING delightful about it. Which naturally led us (in all our infinite editorial wisdom) to want to make a playlist of freezing cold songs.
For you.
Because, you know, you’re not thinking about how cold it is enough.
So here is what we have for you:
Fallen Snow by Au Revoir Simone, because I will use any opportunity to have this song up on the site. ANY. Triple keyboards, precious vocals, icicles melting.
A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger-Of Montreal, One of my favorite songs of 07. The opening burst of sound is straight out of a psyched out Donna Summer song, and as always, the lyrics are priceless, if somewhat inane: I spent the winter on the verge of nervous breakdown, while living in Norway…..
A Hazy Shade of Winter-Simon & Garfunkel. A classic. Also worth noting when you need something to blast while getting ready to go out tonight and Paul and Art just won’t cut it-the Bangles version of the same gem.
A double whammy by Belle and Sebastian-I initially added “A fox in the Snow” but then Cale texted me about “Winter Wooskie” (“Although it feels out of place tucked at the end of the excellent genre hopping Legal Man single, on its own it is quite the overlooked gem”)so we added that too. Twee Team Work!
Cold & Kind – 1900s – Not necessarily a winter song per se, but the title fits, and I love the boy/girl 1970s harmonies and sprinkles of violin throughout it. Fuzzy.
Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow-Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – the token creepadelic winter song. Something sinister this way comes. And its Nick’s piano.
then a few gems by Cale:
Winter Wonder Land – Animal Collective yet another amazing track off one of 2007’s best albums
Winter – Tori Amos Remember high school? I got beat up a lot.
Winter Coat-Umlaut Umlaut: this just popped up on random play on the ipod one time, no idea where it came from but it’s BRILLIANT. I know nothing about them and never bothered to look them up, yet play this song all the time while DJing. Nobody ever dances.
Winter is Blue – Vashti Bunyan Damn straight. What are we doing living in this climate we obviously we’re not evolved to be in. From Vashti’s recently unearthed 1970 masterpiece Just Another Diamond Day
Cold as Ice-Foreigner-Now, I promised myself there would be no Elton John or Queen on this playlist (for no reason but the fact that I didn’t feel the warmth towards them today) but then I ended up including this piano monster by Foreigner. I’m going to say its for good measure, and to balance things out. Plus, the keys action is icy cool.
Baby, Its Cold Outside – Louis Jourdan and Ella Fitzgerald. Now, we OBVIOUSLY had to end with this. It was a toss up between this version and the Tom Jones/Cerys Matthews from Catatonia duet, but I went with the golden oldie. And a Tom and Cerys video instead for closing:
Please feel free to add your own favorites (I am sad we didn’t have “Cold” by “Modern English” and “Eskimo in Me” by Wan Light on hand for one) and go buy yourself some mittens.
Do you have a song for people who are riding their custom Vespa racer to work in 20-degree weather and the transmission locks up because the gears aren’t as powerful as the piston and cylinder and breaks and you have to park it in SE and chain it to a lamp post and then you have to walk across the S. Capitol Bridge all the way to the Navy Yard cursing and you’re still wearing your face-mask (but not Helmet) and some homeless guy yells to another homeless guy who is pissing on a dumpster “Hey Mike! (no relation) Check out the Super Ninja” and “Mike” returns with “Hey Ninja, come suck my dick” and you pick up a fist-sized rock and throw it at the dumpster (you pitched baseball for years) and it smacks it within a foot of “Mike” and he jumps back pissing himself and falls on the ground and the guy who called attention to you steps forward like he is going to do something and you say “Please motherfucker. Please. I’m dying to fight right now” and he doesn’t do anything and so you have to walk to work then call a friend, then go back to your blown-up one-off scooter and shove it in the back of a Nissan X-Terra (it doesn’t fit) so you have to crawl back there and hold it in to keep it from falling and gas is leaking all over you because the scooter is laying on its side and the back door is open and all the wind is blowing in and freezing the gasoline to your skin?
Do you have a song for that? Because I could really fucking use one.
And now I have to rebuild a motor this weekend (But I did win Best Vespa in NC last weekend).
January 25, 2008 at 1:41 pmCale, you are a wellspring of knowledge. As far as songs about snow go, I’m playing “All the Cocaine in the World (Can’t Bring Back the Girl)” by the Webb Brothers. Bundle up!
January 25, 2008 at 2:11 pmi’ve always loved “a hazy shade of winter”. loved.
michael - bon jovi “dead or alive” ha
see http://www.myspace.com/umlautband . we split up in 2005
February 13, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Interestingly, seeing kids innocently dancing to Baby, It’s Cold Outside was a catalyist for Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb to write The America I Have Seen in 1951. His teachings would be a primary inspiration for the likes of al-Zawahiri and bin Laden.
January 25, 2008 at 1:01 pm