The classic Fleet Foxes song with “fairly meaningless” lyrics
For those who are new to the Fleet Foxes experience, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ tends to be one of the best places to start. As one of the band’s most popular and accessible songs, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ also serves to illustrate the band’s style in a succinct two-minute performance. Just don’t get too attached to the song’s lyrics: according to band leader Robin Pecknold, those words don’t mean all that much.
“It’s lyrically fairly meaningless,” Pecknold claimed during the band’s Daytrotter Sessions in 2008. “As an introduction to the record (this was intended to be the opening track on the album), we thought it would be nice to start it with a simple jam that’s focussed on singing – on the record, it starts with a tongue-in-cheek harmony thing that we hoped would make people laugh or something, but I think it just confuses them”.
“This is my favourite song to play live, though singing it live is sometimes difficult because the lyrics are so vague,” he added. “Weird how that works!”
Unlike some of the other songs that appeared on the band’s debut album, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ hadn’t had any kind of live performances prior to its recording. “We never played it together,” Pecknold confirmed to The Seattle Times. “The performances that you hear recorded on that song were the first time those were done. So that one totally came together in recording.”
Over the years, Pecknold found different meanings in the song’s lyrics. The general feeling of ‘White Winter Hymnal’ was meant to invoke innocence, as Pecknold explained to Mojo in 2009. After growing up with his friends, Pecknold eventually saw everyone take different paths in life, some of which were negative.
“From first grade to high school, I spent every day with the same bunch of kids,” he explained. “And it was weird to see how people I had known so long would change so quickly – suddenly they’re drug dealers. I hated it. How did our friendships become less important than wearing a backwards baseball cap?”
Despite its varied meaning to Pecknold over time, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ has been a constant presence in Fleet Foxes’ live shows since it first came out. According to Setlist FM, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ is the band’s second most-played song, with only ‘Mykonos’ besting it. In fact, ‘Mykonos’ has only been played at one more show than ‘White Winter Hymnal’, making them practically partners.
Check out ‘White Winter Hymnal’ down below.
