On NPR’s “All Things Considered” last night, they ran one of their audience-participation features, “Songs About Winter”.  Not just songs with winter in the title, but songs that remind you of winter.

Now, I’m not going to participate in ATC’s poll (as if), but I thought it was a fun question.  So – since it’s an off-election-year pre-holiday Friday and my traffic is lower than normal anyway, I’m going to play along in my own way.

For whatever reason, I associate “Glycerine” by the 90’s grunge-y pop band Bush with driving in nasty snowstorms. Something about that gaunt string part still reminds me of watching snow whipping around on the highway, and feeling chilly, and looking forward to trundling across the grocery store parking lot, cold to the bone in a way that was as much mental as meteorological, and racing home to make dinner for kids.  There was usually a subtext of financial worry, too.  I can’t hear the song to this day, even in the doggiest days of August, without feeling chilly, lonely and worn-down.

(UPDATE: Sometimes, the association affects me so much, I put the wrong video on my blog…)

It’s “A Long December” by Counting Crows, and no, it’s not just because December is in the title; it has a lot to do with the December after a nasty November breakup a few years back. It always fit my mood, and at least until we get into Christmas, it still does.

And all of the end-of-the-year reflection – at least until I crank the happy for the holidays – seems to lead me back to this one.

That should do for now…

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Friday, December 9th, 2011 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.