Winter Music Play List

[pegkerr]

As part of my very deliberate campaign to keep my seasonal affective disorder at bay, I have started assembling a play list of music to play for the darkest time of the year. These are songs picked because they celebrate this time of the year, reminding me of the season's coziest aspects, and reassuring me that this time of the year can be dark, but there is still warmth. I play it on my iPod when I got out on my walks, and it's working really, really well. I have included a few bits of Christmas-related music, but if so, they're tangential, sort of related to the whole winter season, or they're instrumental, and suggestive of a festive time of year as a whole. I want it to be a list I can listen to the whole winter long.

I love my play list and find it very comforting, and thought I'd display it here. Does anyone have ideas of songs to add, in the same vein? I'd particularly appreciate any good winter solstice songs you can name.

Christmas Time is Here (Instrumental) (A Charlie Brown Christmas)
Christmas at Hogwarts (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)
The Christmas Bells of Belfast (Heartland Holiday Concert - Peter Ostroushko)
In Praise of Christmas (To Drive the Cold Winter Away - Loreena McKennitt)
Let It Snow (Christmas with Dino - Dean Martin)
Medley: The Holly and the Ivy (Heartland Holiday Concert - Peter Ostroushko)
Green (Midwinter - Peter Mayer)
The Juniper Tree (Light - Sola)
Harry in Winter (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)
Angel in the Snow (Straw House Down - Peter Mayer)
Skating (A Charlie Brown Christmas)
Mid Winter's Night (Past Times with Good Company - Blackmore's Night)
Ring Out, Solstice Bells (Songs from the Woods - Jethro Tull)
Carolyn's Party [Solstice song] (Through the Window - Ann Reed)
The Longest Night (Midwinter - Peter Mayer)
The Houses of Winter (Midwinter - Peter Mayer)
January Stars (Winter Into Spring - George Winston)
Snow (To Drive the Cold Winter Away - Loreena McKennitt)
Winter Woods (Earth Town Square - Peter Mayer)
The Hounds of Winter (Mercury Falling - Sting)
Winter (Tales of a Librarian - Tori Amos)
Where is the Light (Midwinter - Peter Mayer)

Edited to add: I probably should add Joni Mitchell's River and the song Hot Buttered Rum by Tommy Thompson -- what's the best recording of that one, anybody? Red Clay Ramblers? Oh, and definitely John Gorka's "Winter Cows."

Comments

[madlori.livejournal.com]

ooh! I have some!

Pianist George Winston put out a winter/holiday album called December, and it has some gorgeous tracks on it. I'd especially recommend "Pachelbel's Canon," "The Holly and the Ivy," "Joy" (which is Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring) and "Carol of the Bells."

In addition, find Sting's "Gabriel's Message" and the Brian Setzer Orchestra's "The Man With the Bag."

When I worked holidays at Borders, I grew very tired of the holiday music they played overhead except for one album...Tis the Season by Los Straitjackets (yes, that's spelled right). They're a funky mariachi-kind of instrumental band, and their renditions of carols made me literally dance while I was shelving.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I'm a huge fan of "Baby, It's Cold Outside," by most duets -- most specifically Barry Manilow and K.T. Oslin, or maybe Leon Redbone and Zooey Deschanel.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

I'm really fond of the version with Dolly Parton, even though I usually hate Rod Stewart.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

yeah, I was thinking of that one, and I was checking out some of the options on iTunes looking for the one I liked best, but I hadn't decided yet. I really liked the one I heard once where the woman plays the seducer and the man plays the naive one, only I couldn't remember the singers. For some reason I was thinking maybe Claudia Schmidt??? And the man was???

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

Paul Cebar. I'm thinking that it isn't available for digital purchase, but you can listen to it here (http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/morning_show/listings/2006/10/16/index.php) by clicking on the 5-7 am portion of the October 20 show from about 0:36 on, assuming you've got RealPlayer on your machine. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how wrong it would be to hold a tape recorder against your speakers while playing, and then rip the tape to create your own MP3, but for anyone who is thinking of getting Peg something for Christmas, it would be very very wrong indeed.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Albert and Gage do a great version of it, too. (CD One More Christmas) www.albertandgage.com

[sternel.livejournal.com]

Mannheim Steamroller has some wonderful Christmas Albums -- they're up to the fourth or fifth album now are running out of songs, but the first two are just beautiful -- "Stille Nacht," the last track on their first Christmas album, is one of the loveliest treatments of that song I have ever heard.

Sarah McLachlan has a new holiday album out as well, and has rerecorded her cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "Song for a Winter's Night," which I think you would enjoy very much.

(I have both of these songs on my home computer if you're curious to hear them...)

[sternel.livejournal.com]

Oh! And Dar William's "Christians and the Pagans."

[ambar.livejournal.com]

Ooh, seconded.

My suggestion is Jane Siberry's "Hockey", originally on _Bound By the Beauty_.


"Winter time on the frozen river
Sunday afternoon
They're playing hockey on the river ..."

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I just bought the Sarah McLachlan tune from iTunes. Great suggestion, thanks! It's GORGEOUS.

[sternel.livejournal.com]

Glad you like it!

[weaselmom.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, I just got a 3-CD set called "Celtic Christmas" and found it's not quite up my alley - it's more folk-oriented than classical. Might I send it to you for your collection? (I can get your addy from Kij...)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oh, that would be WONDERFUL! It sounds perfect for me and I would be very happy to receive it. Thank you!

[origamilady.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite songs related to Christmas is "Christmas in the trenches" by John McCutcheon. I really like the message in that song, well that and the fact that a christmas truce actually did happen spontaneously in WW I.

Christmas

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect that your taste and mine (in music) are quite different, but there's also the incontrovertible fact that you have heard a *lot* of music that I have missed completely. So I don't for an instant believe that you would like (or even be able to stand) any of the songs I like. I actually like the legendary Ukrainian Bell Carol ("ring, Christmas bells"), just about any recording. The Roches have a Christmas album, on which my favorite song is "We Three Kings." Bruce Springsteen does a version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", and it really kicks. I've also found out to my surprise that I'm actually growing to like Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bell Rock" and Brenda Lee's "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree." I am including this list to prove that I am indeed reading your posts and thinking about the topic; I would be totally flabbergasted, however, if you were to decide that you liked any of these and they belonged on your list; they simply aren't the kind of thing you appear to be interested in. (And on the other hand, 90% of the recordings of 90% of the Christmas carols really, really turn me off, though "Silent Night" and "Oh, Holy Night" are still deeply moving, and please note the word "recordings" -- singing them with friends can be just plain marvelous, but if somebody were to throw a "disc jockey party" including even my favorite Christmas carols to sing, I would beg off. Singing them as a communal activity is completely different from my inadvertently tuning into them on the radio.)

Nate B.

Re: Christmas

[jbru.livejournal.com]

The moving carol for me is "Little Drummer Boy." Just typing the title has sent little snippets of tune through my head that cause shivers up and down my spine. If I listen to any version of it that I've ever heard I tear up; every time.

Re: Christmas

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

The one I think of as the first version was the Harry Simeone Chorale performance -- and it is a lovely, lovely song. I don't know if Peg wants any of the tearjerkers on this list! The HSC Holiday album is a tradition in my family -- it links the songs together using the Christmas story, and it always reminded me of why we weren't celebrating the solstice.

Of course, now I celebrate both Christmas and the Solstice, so new traditions are born daily. Thanks for the reminder, Peg -- time to dig out the holiday music (the good stuff.)

[cph9680.livejournal.com]

"An Angel Came Down" by Trans Siberian Orchestra is a nice song!

[rutemple.livejournal.com]

Here are some from my Winter Seasonal playlist.
I like the Bryan Bowers' recording of Tommy Thompson's Hot Buttered Rum the best.

Tune, Band or artist, album:
All Saints' Day (instrumental for the English Country Dance), Bare Necessities, Modern Treasures
An Early Frost, Joyful Noise, Red Star Line
Anacreon, Oak Ash & Thorn, (I forget which album, probably the CD that reissued two of their earlier LPs. this is an a cappella trio from the Bay Area who've been singing together for something over 23 years; delightful folk and silly)
Apple Tree Wassail, Shira Kammen, Castle of the Holly King
Bagpipe Ditty/Christmas Day in the Morning / Young Widow, Rodney Miller band, Greasy Coat (an excellent album)
Christmas Day in the Morning, Shira Kammen, Castle of the Holly King
Cold Frosty Morn / Dancing Bear, Balshazzar's Feast, One Too Many
Erthe Upon Erthe, Medieval Baebes, 14th Century Tunes
Es is ein Ros' Ensprungen, Joel Mabus (yes, instrumental on the guitar), Rhyme Schemes (I think - or look on his website)
Lullaby Set, Kammen & Swan, Wild Wood
the Cutty Wren, Steeleye Span, Time
Rafe's Waltz (you can sing Cuty Wren to it), Shira Kammen, Castle of the Holly King
True North, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, UFO Tofu
White Horse, Judith Eisner and friends, Dunquin
Winter Invocation, Claudia Schmidt, ROADS (her spoken word album)
Winer Solstice, Bare Necessities, Modern Treasures
Winer Wakeneth, John Fleagle, World's Bliss
You're Aging Well, Joan Baez, Ring Them Bells

a good start. I can point to where to get some o' these, if you like.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Ooo, this is a FANTASTIC list! Thank you, so much! Will definitely check these out.

Wow.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

And you can even find all this stuff! I've got to finish organizing the office so I can play.

[bluewaterlilies.livejournal.com]

Sarah Maclachlan's cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "Song for a Winter's Night" is luscious and gorgeous. I like the original, too.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone's mentioned The Boar's Head Carol, an immensely cheerful song half of which is in rhyming medieval Latin. Found on the Chieftains' Bells of Dublin (http://www.amazon.com/Bells-Dublin-Chieftains/dp/B000003F53) CD. It also has The St Stephen's Day Murders if you're feeling happily bloody-minded about the season.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

My taste in such things is veering in the raunchy fun of Robert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas From The Family" (lyrics) or any of various covers of "Daddy's Drinkin' Up Our Christmas."

I just can't take the season too seriously or it goes poorly for me.

K.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Have you heard "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer"? Or the Therapy Sisters' 12 days of version about surviving the season with family, cooking, headaches... ;^)

[maribou]

Lily Frost's "Skating on the River" is wonderful. "Skating on the river / Your hand in mine / Winter kisses linger / Diviiiine" and so fort; very happy and warming. I have my copy from a Christmas Songs CD put out by Nettwerk that also has the abovementioned "Song for a Winter's Night" on it.

[lindelea1.livejournal.com]

O yes, I love the music Peter Ostroushko makes. Thanks for reminding me of him.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Some of the most affirming holiday songs for me are John Gorka's cover of Longfellow's poem "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (it's on one of the Windham Hill winter collections and for a bonus I think someone or other's version of Christina Rossetti's gorgeous "In the Bleak Midwinter" is on it too) and Peter, Paul, and Mary's Chanukah song, "Light One Candle" (in that case, more for the words than the music, which is just OK).

Also, the Medieval Baebe's album Mistletoe and Wine is just gorgeous. It's the auditory equivalent of a lush medieval tapestry.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know exactly what you mean about John Gorka's "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day"! I got to hear him perform it live at a holiday show he participated in at the Fitzgerald Theater last year, and I actually wept as I listened to it, thinking about the war--for it was written about the Civil War, of course, but it still fits so painfully perfectly today.

I will look up the other songs you mention, too. Thank you!