Five songs guaranteed to warm you up this winter
We all know it’s meant to be the most wonderful time of the year, but being completely deprived of daylight while battling through the sub-zero sludge of a winter’s morning can lead to your mood being plunged into a permanent state of darkness, never mind the weather. When all you want to do is lock yourself away from the elements until at least mid-March, it can be hard to find anything to tide you over until your next shred of Vitamin D, leaving us prone to becoming the shrivelled shadows of our former selves. Folk is the only cure.
But fear not—the icicles on those cold little hearts have no reason to set in when you’ve got the right playlist in check to steer you through those long, dark nights. Music has the power to keep you warm, even on the coldest of days. It has the ability to make you feel all nice and cosy, even when the weather is harsh on you.
Imagine listening to Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’ or Bob Dylan’s ‘Shelter from the Storm’ on a wintry night. The comforting vocals and lyrics are sure to leave you feeling good, isn’t it? In fact, there’s a certain secret chord to winteriness. Even a toddler could pick out a song that sounds sunny and a track that has its place in gusts and showers.
Here, we break down five of the best winter-warming songs that might help you save on central heating, but be warned, they might just dissolve you into a puddle. From the stirring ways of Jessica Pratt to the beauty of Dylan’s poetry at its best, these anthems are great at any time, but on a windswept evening, they’re simply astounding.
Five best winter warming songs:
‘Back, Baby’ – Jessica Pratt
Jessica Pratt‘s music makes life better. It elevates existence like a fine Pinot Noir. In the dark winter months, that warming elegance is a vital addition. Although she might hail from California, her music summons images of Manhattan streets, shrouded in the leafy debris of the more relaxing seasons. So, rather than focusing on the nonexistent daylight hours, runny noses and scuppering rain, you listen to ‘Back, Baby’ and view the cold a little more romantically.
Taken from her 2015 album, it’s self-produced and pared back but also remarkably full and detailed. It’s a dreamy piece of deliverance that graciously sidesteps the pitfalls that can blight young stars and offers up a homespun depiction of an artist doing everything they wish. ‘Back, Baby’ is a world unto itself—draw the blinds and sink into it.
‘Shelter from the Storm’ – Bob Dylan
It’s a shame Storm Darragh couldn’t have been renamed Storm Dylan because the American master songwriter could have provided the perfect antidote to the howling winds. Indeed, his 1975 hit ‘Shelter from the Storm’, taken from his 15th album Blood on the Tracks, embodies just that. A swirling poetic rumination on wisdom and lost love, Dylan’s trademark profound lyricism leaves us just as much feeling warmed as it does with a puzzle to unpick.
Who is the “she” that takes in the weary traveller at the end of his arduous journey? Why do his chances at romance become totally “hopeless and forlorn”? Regardless of whether Dylan is depicting a story of fact or fiction, his inviting acoustic tones give us our own little piece of shelter against the elements.
‘Flowers in December’ – Mazzy Star
With a similarly Dylan-esque gentle guitar strum and harmonica howl, Mazzy Star’s ‘Flowers in December’ is another fitting tonic for the cold season. As the lead single to the band’s 1996 album Among My Swan, lead singer Hope Sandoval’s dreamy, lilting vocal mulls over the misgivings of love in a way that only a dark night with a bottle of wine could induce.
If you’ve been unfortunate enough to have your relationship head south this year, then it’s tempting, with the winter months in full swing, to frankly never want to leave the house again. Until that point, maybe the comforting lull of ‘Flowers in December’ can help steer you through the heartache because clearly, Mazzy Star knows all too well the pain of a “man [who] goes blind in his heart”.
‘The Only Living Boy in New York’ – Simon and Garfunkel
Simon and Garfunkel’s swan song as a pair—also ironically happening to be their most critically acclaimed album, Bridge Over Troubled Water—spawned a range of hits aside from its main title track, not least ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’.
Anyone who’s braved the city that never sleeps this time of year knows just how bitter it can get, but in the case of the folk duo, the inference went further than just the outside temperature. Tensions had been straining between the pair; Garfunkel had been off chasing Hollywood, leaving Simon behind to cobble together the songs, and so he penned this one as an indirect jibe at his partner, lamenting on his isolation. But as far as diss tracks go, this one’s probably as soft as it gets – with its parting message to “let your honesty shine” breaking sun through the clouds.
‘Both Sides Now’ – Joni Mitchell
Queen Joni Mitchell was never expressly associated with the wintering season until the great meteor of Christmas cheese—also known as Love Actually—crushed into our lives back in 2003. Whether you melt at Emma Thompson’s emotional breakdown to the song or would rather puke into a bag, it’s still clear to see that Mitchell is oozing with the warming tone that only a roaring fire could match.
Indeed, there’s something about the passing of time that gets us all nostalgic as the end of each year approaches—it’s the perfect mood to let us reflect on all things loved and lost, about where we are compared to where we once might have hoped to be. Mitchell’s ruminations looking back over life are made all the more poignant in her now more esteemed 2000 reissue of the original 1969 hit, which, despite the gut-punching admission that “I really don’t know life at all”, still leaves us with that little comforting glow.
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