This song comes from a sweet children's animated film based on the book & illustrations of David Melling and when we watched it on telly with the girls last Christmas, I was most struck with it.
It popped up on the iPo the other day in one of those Mr Shuffle Gets It Right For The Season moments, and then I heard Kate Rusby interviewed on Radcliffe & Maconie too.
As the summer always turns me on to sweet soul, funk and reggae, so these nights-below-zero send me back to things that are English and folky and ancient-sounding.
Kate Rusby - 'Little Jack Frost' (2005)
Lovely song.
ReplyDeleteKind of know what you mean about the folky thing in winter, although with me it's John Martyn. His voice always warms me up. I especially like putting on Small Hours when the wind is howling and the rain is lashing outside.
That's funny, I have that as a stinky hot, buzzin' fly, summerday song: 'Solid Air' for winter, 'One World' for summer, 'Bless The Weather' (thanks Beth) for autumn or spring.
ReplyDeleteDo you know this poem? Look! It even mentions an orange sky!
ReplyDelete'WIND'
This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet
Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.
At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up -
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,
The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house
Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,
Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.
- Ted Hughes
I like that.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't Love You More also makes me think of winter nights by the fire.
'iPo'?
ReplyDeleteOh aye.
ReplyDelete"nights-below-zero" very good!
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I may have to borrow this for a seasonal winter mix I'm compiling.. Winter is worth checking for more of the same, although I haven't grabbed the new one (yet).
I'm with you on seasonal sounds, Spring is Acid Jazz and new music, summer is samba, latin, reggae - Ernest Ranglin's Below The Bassline ticks all those boxes. Autumn into winter is acoustic cosy-folky for me. Christmas is glitz, glam, tinsel and camp - luckily I'm seeing the N Y Dolls tonight so that's all that in one bundle.
Have you checked John Betjeman's winter/Christmas poems?
Oh aye, crackin' stuff Mond.
ReplyDeleteNY Dolls eh? Yes, I can picture you in the stack heels.
Almost - it's leopard skin creepers and a T Rex Solid Gold Easy Action t-shirt tonight.
ReplyDeleteOh and that 'Winter' link was meant to be for John 'Acoustic' Smith's site and his track Winter..
I've been folky for most of 2009 through snow and sun and rain.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy reggae most in the sun though and 70s soul.
The Jam are autumn to me for some reason...
Country girl
ReplyDeleteWalking through city squares in winter rain
Walking down muddy lanes or empty streets
Arranging a time and place to meet
The Word's Best of the Decade CD has me reaching for Bjork's Vespertine. That's a good winter warmer (and Vespertine would quite possibly make it into my top 10 albums of all time, let alone this decade).
ReplyDeleteCould never be doing with Kate Rusby, a bit too mannered in the folk idiom for my liking. Quite like this though.