Winter Songs

We got buried last night. 8 inches of pretty powder here and the city is shut down. Its the most accumulation I've seen since we've moved here. I cleared the walk and the driveway with a red plastic kiddie shovel that my Dad bought for my son. It was quite a contorted feat and I'm sure I will never walk completely upright again. If I do find steady work, my body is now perfectly aligned for picking low strawberries or sweeping empty warehouses.
As I was hyperventilating and on the cusp of a major cardiac event, I had close to an out of body experience, where "Let's Get Physical" was playing in my head and I was surfing a wave of post avalanche snow out to the horizon line. There was no hot chocolate waiting for me when I snapped out of it. There WAS the couch and a weird hot flash of a scantily clad chiropractor to accompany my post snowmatic stress disorder.

I was upset. I was mildly troubled because when I was a kid, we had a driveway that was a quarter mile long and I had to shovel that a few times until my father pulled me out of a snowdrift and then reluctantly sprung for a plow. We lived in the snowbelt back then and surely I could handle this puny little light dusting.. But what troubled me more during this morning's recovery is the fact that my WINTER exit song could have been "Let's Get Physical". No disrespect to Ms. Newton John(although she might be a tough broad..her own husband faked his death and jumped off a boat to escape her), but that song doesn't ROCK. If I'm goin' out...while shoveling..the song has to rock or at least be related to winter.

So I came up with another list of ROCK songs that remind me of Winter, Snow, Cold and possibly being snuffed out by snowfall. Here they are...

1) Winter Time- Steve Miller Band (Steve's obviously from CA...only leaves are mentioned,no snow)
2) Winter- The Rolling Stones(from Goats Head Soup)"Sometimes I wanna wrap my coat around Ya"
3) Wintertime Love-The Doors(Waiting For the Sun) "Come with me dance, my dear..winter's so cold this year" I hope Jim's leather had a liner.
4) Backdrifts-Radiohead(Hail To The Thief)-blips and drifts of snow fill my brain while Thom sings this song about a honeymoon being really,truly over.
5) Winterlong-Neil Young and Crazy Horse-"I waited for you winterlong, you seem to be where I belong". Get the LIVE VERSION.
6) Too Cold in the Winter-Cry Of Love- An awesome song from the ridiculously under appreciated first album by this short lived southern/rock/blues band. The guitarist Audley Freed is NO MERE MORTAL and went on to join the Black Crowes where Rich Robinson wouldn't let him do any solos so he quit.
7) Stone Cold Fever-Humble Pie-from one of the greatest live albums of all time: Rockin' The Fillmore
8) Stone Cold Crazy-Queen(Sheer Heart Attack)-the most fabulous blast of 2:17 minutes of rock I have ever heard.
9) Stone Cold- Rainbow(Straight Between the Eyes)- Gotta love Joe Lynn Turner..."I thought I knew you so well, can't break away from your spell...You PUT ME IN A DEEP FREEZE!"
10) Cold Metal-Iggy Pop-"Cold metal when I start my band, cold metal in my garbage can."
11) Cold As Ice-Foreigner -I don't care what you say. Foreigner is not yacht rock. Foreigner is aircraft carrier rock. A highly under rated band who just happened to have a lot of hits.
12) Cold Bitch-Soundgarden(Flower EP) Some of the most bonecrushingly beautiful screams ever put to tape by the golden grunge god Mr. Cornell. "But In your heart, I freeze!"
13) Ice Cold Man-Probot(Dave Grohl)- Better than any FOO FIGHTER you can throw my way, this song is sung by Lee Dorrian, lead singer of Napalm Death.
14) She Shook Me Cold-David Bowie
15) Cold Day In Hell- The Atomic Bitchwax
16) Snowblind-Black Sabbath- saving the best for near last. It has the word "snow" in the title...but this is the only powder that makes shoveling go a lot faster. "What you get is what you see, things just don't come easily!"

Other songs that make me think winter without some cute winterlike word in the title

Riding the Nightingale- Mark Lanegan.."Think I dug too deep a hole"
River-Joni Mitchell- "I wish I had a river, I could skate away on"
Drowning Man,Surrender- U2...Actually the entire War album makes me think of cold cold winters in upstate NY...was it because they had a video where they were trudging through the snow with their instruments? War for winter, Unforgettable Fire for autumn.

Sure there are many more...and you will suggest some for me right here in the comments!...until then, kick back with VH1 classic or the yule log on your TV, and some whisky in your cocoa. Stay warm and stay cool.