The 10 Greatest Winter Songs

Some of you may remember my 10 Greatest Summer Songs piece. Now, behold! The 10 Greatest Winter Songs.

The only rule is they can’t be Christmas songs, which is a separate category. They can mention Christmas in passing, but I have largely tried to keep it away from Christmas.

I will do these in reverse order, from 10-1.

10. The Snow White Diner - The Handsome Family
Perhaps the most obscure choice on the list, but a winter song in its title, overall mood, and reference to a frozen lake. The Handsome Family are now probably best known for the theme song to True Detective, but I was listening to them many years before that, and indeed saw them live in Newcastle in a time that now seems impossibly distant. This song comes from the album Twilight, and at the time I had never heard anything quite like it. The other standout track on that album is ‘No One Fell Asleep Alone’. I associate it with the American literature I was reading at the time, which is not just a coincidence, as Edgar Allan Poe is an obvious reference point. There are also echoes of Raymond Carver in the terse Americana of verses like:

I saw a deer limp across
A supermarket parking lot
Last night as I drove home from work
Old men sleeping in the dirt

That is from ‘No One Fell Asleep Alone’, which upon reflection I prefer to ‘Snow White Diner’, but it is not wintry enough, and rules are rules.

9. Winter Lady - Leonard Cohen
It is hard to make any list of songs without including Cohen, and he happens to have one that perfectly matches our theme. It is not one of his absolute best, but we are talking about possibly the greatest songwriter of all time, so even his second or third tier stuff merits inclusion. And as an opening verse it is hard to top:

Traveling lady, stay awhile
Until the night is over
I’m just a station on your way
I know I am not your lover

The song was covered by Will Oldham in 1994, but only the most dedicated autist would be concerned with such things. I was tempted to include ‘First We Take Manhattan’, which is top-tier Cohen, and I happen to associate it with Christmas, but strictly speaking there is no association, other than the wintry feel of some of the music, the mention of Berlin, and the coat he wears in the video. Hence, ‘Winter Lady’ makes the list.

8. Alice - Tom Waits
I was torn between this and ‘Cold Cold Ground’, but it had to be ‘Alice’, if only for the opening lyrics:

It’s dreamy weather we’re on
You waved your crooked wand
Along an icy pond
With a frozen moon
A murder of silhouette crows I saw
And the tears on my face
And the skates on the pond
They spell Alice

The song is from the album of the same name, which was written for an opera based on Lewis Carroll’s obsession with Alice Liddell, which I don’t know loads about but I suspect takes us into some fairly dodgy territory. That aside, it has the lyrical depth and romanticism one expects from Mr Waits.

And so a secret kiss
Brings madness with the bliss
And I will think of this
When I’m dead in my grave

You know what they say: ‘It wouldn’t be winter without Waits’ (they do not say this).

7. Snow Angel - Ron Sexsmith
Ron Sexsmith is probably the most underrated songwriter of all time. Many haven’t even heard of him, and yet he belongs up there with the greats, perhaps just one rung beneath Cohen, Dylan, Simon, Young et al. No one seems to have figured out how to produce his songs, largely because they barely require any production. There can be an illusion that they are bland, but repeat listens prove that to be false. His strongest work is probably Retriever (2004), but others will argue for Blue Boy, Cobblestone Runway, or any number of other albums full of beautifully crafted, introspective masterpieces. The track I have chosen comes from Time Being, which perhaps isn’t his absolute best, but has several hidden gems (‘Never Give Up’, ‘Reason For Our Love’, and ‘And Now the Day Is Done’ are my other favourites). I have picked ‘Snow Angel’ due to its wintriness, of course, but it is also a typically clever and poignant offering from Sexsmith, as the concept of making one’s mark in the fresh snow becomes a metaphor for a love that quickly fades.

Strange how their love bloomed in the winter
Only to vanish in the spring
It never fails to make him shiver
To see the outline of her wings

Where she made her last snow angel
Little did they know
That it’d make a lasting impression
Deeper than the snow
In his soul, snow angel never faded

Unfortunately, Sexsmith has terrible political views, and has been downright abusive to Trump voters. This despite penning the very well-observed lyrics:

We live in times
Where choice is frowned upon
Afraid to even raise
Our voice in song

Or speak our minds
For fear of falling on
The wrong side of opinion
Where has freedom gone?

But his music transcends his personal flaws, which let’s face it is the norm in the rock and pop world. The contrast between Sexsmith’s personal disappointments and failures and the effortless beauty of his work was captured nicely in the documentary Love Shines.

6. Mysteries - Beth Gibbons
I moved this song up the list at the last minute, as it is truly stunning. Whether it counts as a winter song is perhaps debatable, but the rain and wind sounds at the start, the talk of wind on the shore, the spindly guitar arpeggios and the frosty backing vocals means it certainly qualifies in my mind. I also wanted to include it in case you haven’t heard it, as it will surely enrich your life. It comes from the appropriately named Out of Season album, featuring Rustin Man. The other standout tracks are ‘Tom the Model’, ‘Resolve’, and ‘Sand River’. The latter would also make it onto a best autumn songs list, which is not bad going for an artist relatively unknown outside of her time in Portishead. Being a complex sort of chap, I am not that bothered about Portishead, and rate this quasi-solo album much higher.

5. At the Chime of a City Clock - Nick Drake
One could spend a lifetime thinking about Nick Drake and the strange magic of his music. To have died at 26 having created so many perfect songs is unfathomable, though some clues as to how he did it can be gleaned by listening to his mother’s music, which has many uncanny similarities. The song I have chosen is not his best, though nothing he did was bad or even mediocre. I could perhaps have chosen the magnificent ‘Northern Sky’, but ‘Chime’ is simply the most wintry, with its opening lyric:

A city freeze
Get on your knees
Pray for warmth and green paper

It perfectly captures winter in the city (at least in the pre ‘Yookay’ days), which perhaps wasn’t even a specific feeling one knew was available until hearing this song. This track comes from the exquisite Bryter Layter album. Some will prefer Fives Leaves Left, with songs like ‘River Man’, which conveys a uniquely English mysticism that reminds me of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn from The Wind in the Willows. Others will choose the stripped-down elegance of Pink Moon, whose genius the cretinous critics failed to appreciate upon initial release. My favourite remains Bryter Layter, partly because I remember listening to it with my first ever girlfriend. With the quotidian ennui of impending middle age, it is these memories that remind one of a time when magic still seemed to exist. And Nick Drake is, as I say, the most magical of artists.

4. These Days - Nico
I almost didn’t include this on grounds that it is perhaps an autumn song, but I think it counts as early winter. There is no objective metric for this, and only I get to decide, so there it is. Despite the wistful tone of this piece, somehow Jackson Browne was only 16 when he wrote it. It is lent gravitas by Nico’s typically melancholic delivery, though she was also fairly young at the time of recording. Yet I tend to picture her older, having given up on a life of hedonism and living as a recluse, though I’m not sure if she ever even did this. She died of a head injury at 49, and everything about her seems as sad and mysterious as this song.

3. River - Joni Mitchell
This is the one song where I am allowing an explicit Christmas reference. One, because it is not what is typically meant by a ‘Christmas song’ (though the piano does cleverly allude to ‘Jingle Bells’). And two, because it is so good it simply gets a pass. I always loved the honesty of the lyric:

I’m so hard to handle
I’m selfish and I’m sad
Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had

Incidentally, my ex-girlfriend also introduced me to this song, but sadly I was the Joni in that situation. Mitchell has a habit of including these moments of simple but devastating honesty. See also ‘A Case of You’, where she sings:

Oh, I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I’m frightened by the devil
And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid

One is left in little doubt that these lines are autobiographical, especially as she has said she thinks of herself mainly as a painter, which seems insane for someone so musically talented. Her voice is almost supernaturally perfect, and she is also an incredible songwriter. In fact, I have seen her on a documentary recite an old poem about fish, and even that was sublime. She is in a category with Nick Drake of people so gifted that there is almost no way to comprehend it. In fact I am now regretting that I didn’t put ‘California’ in my best summer songs. Truly one of the GOATest GOATs of all time. And I’ve just noticed her birthday is one day before mine. A classic Scorpio, if that wasn’t already obvious from the lyrics. Women and insane people will know what I mean.

2. California Dreamin’ - The Mamas & the Papas
I have slightly reluctantly included this ultra-normie choice, but it would have been somewhat perverse to leave it out. Technically this isn’t the original. It was written by John and Michelle Phillips, but before the Mamas & the Papas formed, and was first recorded by Barry McGuire. But this version is the only one anyone remembers. And rightly so, as it is an undeniable winter banger.

1. Andalucia - John Cale
This is my choice for greatest winter song. It counts if only because it starts with the lyrics:

Andalucia, when can I see you?
When it is snowing out again?

The contrast of the warm musical accompaniment may prompt the visually inclined to picture sitting inside by a fire or radiator, watching the snow falling outside. The guitar reminds me of Dylan’s ‘If Not For You’, featuring George Harrison (the alternative take from the Bootleg Series). This is the most beautiful track on John Cale’s seminal Paris 1919 album, which opens with ‘Child’s Christmas in Wales’, a track I ruled out because of its explicit Christmassy nature, but also because ‘Andalucia’ is better. It is a strong contender for best song on the album, though there are many excellent tracks, including ‘Graham Greene’, which is the only song I know that mentions Enoch Powell (and in a positive light). As with many Cale pieces, it’s not massively clear what all the lyrics mean, yet meaning is powerfully conveyed nonetheless. Therein lies his greatness.

Honourable Mentions

Naturally, there are many candidates who didn’t make the list but perhaps should have. I realised too late that Morrissey’s ‘Late Night, Maudlin Street’ would certainly meet the criteria. And maybe I should have included Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’. I could go on. Anyway, I hope you enjoy these choices.

Happy winter,
Nick