Five of Cameron Winter’s most devastating lyrics
Despite only being 24 years old, the word genius is already being thrown around a lot when it comes to Cameron Winter.
When his band Geese became cult darlings with their debut album, Projector, he was only 18, and since then, Winter has earned the respect of the music world on a scale unseen in quite some time. When he headlined a sold-out Carnegie Hall during his tour celebrating his debut solo album, Heavy Metal, he joined a powerful yet rare rank of people who played the historic venue that young or that early in their career. Two of the people in the slim numbers who headlined it before their 24th birthday? Bob Dylan and Tim Buckley.
So it’s clear to everyone that Winter is only something special. In Geese, that’s shown through the band’s crazy textures and meandering melodies booming into climaxes. There, Winter becomes very much the rockstar, though the rockstar with a voice that can scream one moment and sound jazzy the next. But for his solo work, he sounds like the choir mister in a grand church, or sometimes like a reincarnated Nina Simone in the body of a white man from Brooklyn.
But part of the power obviously lies in his songwriting, which is exactly what has brought about the constant Dylan comparisons he gets. Winter knows well how to write of love, capturing it perfectly in the simple phrase, “Love will make you fit it all in the car” in ‘Love Takes Miles’, or the humble request, “Baby, let me wash your feet forever” in ‘Cobra’. However, out of all the emotions, devastation is quickly becoming his wheelhouse.
Cameron Winter’s most devastating lyrics:
‘Au Pays du Cocaine’
“You can stay with me and just pretend I’m not there”
Since the release of Geese’s latest album, the band has gained a huge new wave of attention, and a lot of that can be chalked up to the power of ‘Au Pays du Cocaine’. A perfect bridging track between the band and Winter’s solo career, it’s perhaps the simplest song the band has ever shared and perhaps some of the most simple yet gut-wrenching lyrics the songwriter has ever put on tape.
Whether about a fading love, a parent, or even a past version of himself, there’s an ache to the song. “You can be free and still come home,” Winter sings, begging, “You can change and still choose me”, putting himself aside just so this person will stick around. But the gut-punch comes when he puts it plainly, “You can stay with me and just pretend I’m not there”, capturing the desperate, self-degradation of love with a painful growing distance.
‘Vines’
“I’ll keep killing your soul with my coldness”
As the first solo song Cameron Winter unveiled, ‘Vines’ was immediately a far cry from the world of Geese. With absolutely nothing on the track by Winter, a piano and some subtle strings, written and produced by the artist alone, the track takes the word sparse to the furthest extent in terms of craft.
However, with his rich vocals settling into this new, simple crooning territory, sounding almost choral and hymnal, and with the devastation of the lyricism, ‘Vines’ is a heartache. “I feel loneliest when I’m with you,” he repeats over and over in this song about the heartbreak the wrong person can bring about, even when you’re side by side.
‘Try As I May’
“Try as I may to love what fits in my hand, I don’t, I don’t”
The power of Heavy Metal exists in its tiniest moments. ‘Try As I May’ is the type of song that might end up getting lost as another incredibly simple one, and one where Winter’s voice is at its most wailing, but right in its final seconds, it cuts deep.
A song that wonders about gratitude and about the capability we even have to engage with the world, with love or with other people, Winter seems to be fighting with futility as trying to hold onto a failed love leads him to question if it’s possible to hold onto anything really. But then, as he hits his conclusion, his voice grows quieter. Delivered as really no more than a whisper when played live, is there anything quite so encapsulating or heartbreaking of our own innate dissatisfaction than the line, “Try as I may to love what fits in my hand…I don’t.”
‘If You Turn Back Now’
“I might love you again if you leave me alone”
At Winter’s live shows, you can hear a pin drop. No one sings along, no one seems to even dare breathe, but especially during ‘If You Turn Back Now’, the unreleased and staggering track brings a whole new meaning to silence.
An anthem for avoidance, Winter once again delivers a song that sounds like a hymn or like a Nina Simone masterpiece as he introspects on his own rejection of closeness. Caught somewhere between being pulled back in by a love he needs to leave, or rejecting a love for his own isolation, ‘If You Turn Back Now’ is a ballad of internal struggle, and nothing captures it quite like the simplicity of that wailed, central line or the closing punch of “My heart is for those who leave me alone”.
‘Take It With You’
“You can love me from afar if that’s what puts you at ease, but you won’t be on my mind”
Back in the 1960s, Bob Dylan basically could have written a masterclass in the art of the absolutely brutal break-up tracks. “And it ain’t no use in calling out my name, gal, I can’t hear you anymore,” he sang on ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’, a song that basically just says “Cya” to an ex-lover and slams the door in their face.
Now, in the 2020s, clearly Winter has taken that course because ‘Take It With You’ is beautiful, but savage nonetheless. Essentially, this is just Winter telling an ex to leave no trace and never return. Writing a complete and total end to their connection, it’s clear he wants no part of that love to remain, but still, despite the coldness of that, the song manages to be stunning. It feels like the exact kind of song Dylan would write, and then Baez would cover, so who’s stepping up to the plate?
