Rhinofy-Winter
1. "Winter" The Rolling Stones
One can argue whether the Stones peaked with "Beggars Banquet", "Let It Bleed" or "Sticky Fingers", iconoclasts can trumpet "Exile On Main Street", and I’m one of them, but no one can dispute the great decline began with "Goats Head Soup". We expected more.
Sure, there was a big hit, "Angie", and I loved "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)" from the first time I heard it, but you won’t find a single person who wasn’t let down by "Goats Head Soup". The hype was all about "Star Star", which didn’t live up to it, the album lacked the peaks we expected, there was no "Sympathy For The Devil", never mind "Gimmie Shelter", but decades later, the moody tunes in the middle of the second side resonate. That’s how it is with relative disappointments, you come back and love them, we harbor the imperfect. And every time I think about winter, this song goes through my head.
2. "Winter" Tori Amos
"Silent All These Years" was broken by a quirky video added by MTV. Tunes this obtuse don’t get mainstream exposure these days, they’re relegated to the dustbin of obscurity, but thank god we were exposed to this. Because of the message. Because sometimes I hear my voice and I’m stunned, because it’s been silent all these years. I used to be able to talk nonstop, can still do so when I’m inspired, but regular conversation has become so difficult and I’m improving but I still feel alone so much and to hear "Silent All These Years" makes me feel warm inside because someone else is on my page.
And "Silent All These Years" has been forgotten by everybody but fans but its appealing strangeness hooked me before I even comprehended the lyrics and got me to play "Little Earthquakes" whereupon I discovered my favorite Tori Amos track, "Winter".
It sounds like winter. It feels like winter. It’s cold, it could be snowing, you can feel the nip in the air, it’s just you and the elements. You feel close to death yet totally alive. And then there’s the change…
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
It’s the human condition. How come we love and desire them more than they do us? We’re swimming through a life of crushes and infatuations, most of them unrequited.
"Winter" sounds like life feels.
3. "Sometimes In Winter" Blood, Sweat & Tears
The first album, with Al Kooper, is best. But it was the second, with David Clayton-Thomas, that broke through.
This album was as ubiquitous in 1969 as Adele’s is today. And just like "21", "Blood, Sweat & Tears" crossed generational lines, oldsters and youngsters alike were endeared to it. And we all heard "Spinning Wheel" way too much, "You’ve Made Me So Very Happy" was less offensive after so many plays and one could never tire of the cover of Laura Nyro’s "And When I Die", but this Steve Katz composition is the only track from this album that I still play, that I still want to hear today.
It sounded nothing like the rest of the album, but was intimate and felt like winter just like the Tori Amos cut above.
4. "A Hazy Shade Of Winter" Simon & Garfunkel
Somehow this is now known as a Bangles track as opposed to one twelfth of "Bookends", not only Simon & Garfunkel’s best album, but one of the best long players EVER!
"A Hazy Shade Of Winter" comes right after "Mrs. Robinson" on side two. It sounds like New York winter. Agitated by the cold, but alive and angry.
And I know Paul Simon winces at his young lines about his memory slipping while looking over manuscripts of unpublished rhyme, never mind while drinking vodka and lime, but there is wisdom in the lyrics:
Hang on to your hopes my friend
That’s an easy thing to say
But if your hope should pass away
Simply pretend
That you can build them again
That’s what life is about, faking it until it becomes real.
This is different from today’s philosophy of declaring yourself a winner and repeating affirmations. In the sixties we owned who we were, but sometimes, when scraping bottom, we had to shine up our personalities a bit to get by. Today everybody’s two-dimensional, whereas in the sixties it was all about revealing not only your hopes and dreams, but your warts and imperfections. We were in it together, trying to find the meaning of life. Which we’ve now declared to be money.
Meanwhile, one of the great things about Spotify is finding unknown covers, like the one included here by Aztec Two-Step. Maybe it’s only worth one listen, but it’s always interesting to hear variations and become aware of others’ preferences and influences.
And one other interesting cover of this track is by Susan Werner, also included in the playlist.
5. "Valley Winter Song" Fountains Of Wayne
"Welcome Interstate Managers" is the only Fountains Of Wayne album I cottoned to. Maybe it’s because I loved it so much I went to see the band live and was so disappointed I no longer believed. Fountains Of Wayne can make records but live it’s like seeing your sister’s boyfriend’s college band. You can hear the intelligence, they’re just missing some soul on the way to graduate school and Wall Street.
"Valley Winter Song" is not my favorite cut on "Welcome Interstate Managers", I can listen to "Peace And Love" forever and "No Better Place" is just as good and "Hackensack" is so creepy it’s unforgettable but with so many good tracks I played the album over and over and know "Valley Winter Song". I love the chorus:
The snow is coming down
On our New England town
And it’s been falling all day long
It sounds just like walking around campus in a snowstorm.
6. "Winterlude" Michel Montecrossa
I had no idea who this dude was until just now, when I searched and found this.
"Winterlude", of course, is a Bob Dylan song from "New Morning", one of my favorite albums of his. Released mere months after his first bomb, "Self Portrait", "New Morning" was stripped down and listening to it made you feel like you were alone in a cabin by the fireside. I played this album incessantly in January 1971, "Winterlude" reminds me of Middlebury.
Too bad Dylan is such a breadhead he’s pulled his music from Spotify. That’s what you want to do, keep your stuff in a vault so no one can hear it unless they pay. The younger generation’s got this right, first and foremost it’s about sharing, money comes thereafter.
If you want your music to live on, make it available for all to hear.
Or you can just go to YouTube and listen to "Winterlude" for free and Dylan can get paid nothing. Spotify puts all these cuts in one place, easily findable, it kills piracy dead. But Dylan wants to look his age. Clueless.
7. "Wintertime Love" The Doors
It comes right after "Summer’s Almost Gone" on "Waiting For The Sun", which is a much better seasonal track. But I know every lick on this Doors album that had a huge hit, "Hello, I Love You", but was disappointing after the hitless but moody and creepy "Strange Days".
This was the beginning of the decline in the perception of the Doors. The next album, "The Soft Parade", was considered bombastic and a sell-out, but I preferred it to "Waiting For The Sun" and then the band stripped down with "Morrison Hotel" but insiders shrugged and then Morrison died months after the release of "L.A. Woman" and suddenly this forgotten album was resurrected and everybody decided the Doors were great and believe so to this day.
So, don’t pay attention to the critics.
And sure, albums will sell when you die, but will they keep selling?
The Doors catalog does.
8. "Winterness" Pousette-Dart Band
I prefer "Freezing Hot", which is Pousette-Dart Band’s best track, but this cut gets the feel of the act right. Acoustic music like this used to have a place in the mainstream.
9. "Song For A Winter’s Night" Gordon Lightfoot
THE PIECE DE RESISTANCE!
Based on the number of covers on Spotify, you’d think this was a gigantic hit. But despite a recent rendition by Sarah McLachlan, this track has been bubbling way below the surface, known only to a small cadre of fans who are true believers in the tune.
That’s the mark of a great song, anyone can sing it. You can invest yourself in it, but it requires no DNA to survive, it’s got all it needs, it’s self-contained. And as is the case with so many songs, the original, sung by the composer version, is the best.
I discovered this cut about a decade ago in a boxed set and couldn’t stop playing it. Naysayers will complain about the strings and the rest of the production but that’s what makes this version so great. It sounds like you’re on a sleigh traveling to an isolated location in the woods long after dark.
Loneliness is worst in winter. The days are short. Everybody’s inside. In so many ways, we’re hibernating, waiting for life to begin again.
If I could know within my heart
That you were lonely too
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
Upon this winter night with you
It’s music like this that gets us through.
The camaraderie of the season can have us wishing that it’s January already.
This is my gift to you.
