Winter Songs

Awakened early today (for me, anyway).  I was looking out the window and admiring the pale blue winter sky, quite lovely.  Then I thought about the gray skies that dominate the season, and Fleetwood Mac's "Bare Trees" started going through my head.  Bare trees, grey light, oh yeah, it was a cold night.

Soon, a litany of songs came to mind, and I had to grab some paper to clear my head, and maybe get back to sleep.  And it all became this post.

Bare Trees was released in 1972, and marked the transition from Danny Kirwan to Bob Welch as front man. Songs are about evenly divided on the album, but Kirwan got the title track.



Here's an album track from Simon and Garfunkel's The Sounds of Silence.  They were very new to stardom, and Simon seems to be taking himself very seriously still.  I love the enthusiasm of the audience at the start.



Billy Bragg nicked Simon's opening line, and created something wholly different, performed here in a favorite winter spot: a pub.



Fountains of Wayne is a power pop band from New Jersey, with a wicked sense of humor and a warm humanity. The latter is embodied in "Valley Winter Song" from their third album, Welcome Interstate Managers.



After the critics slagged A Passion Play (rightfully), Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson swore that he was done recording.  A year later, War Child was released, with the sublime "Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day."



And speaking of sublime skating, the perfect winter song might be Joni Mitchell's "River".  Watch for the footage with Graham Nash.  So much melancholy in that woman.



There, about three songs too long for a good post. But, which ones to cut?!?  This one should get a lot of TL,DL comments: Too Long, Didn't Listen.