The northern regions of New York are being, in some cases literally, buried by snow. Our own Carolyn Menyes has brought light to Interpol being stuck in its own tour bus for 30 hours due to the weather and we're continuing a trend with a playlist about being surrounded by snow. Not happy snow, like "Walking in A Winter Wonderland," not snow as in cocaine a la Jeezy and Black Sabbath, snow: The stuff that will trap you in your home and cause parties of pioneers to resort to eating each other.
"The Blizzard" by Jim Reeves
Country songs are stereotyped for carrying melodramatic and tragic tales about dogs dying and such. This track from Jim Reeves features such a tale, but between a man and his horse. The tune relates the travels of a cowboy and Old Dan (no, not from Where The Red Fern Goes but just as sad) and their eventual death at the icy hands of a blizzard. What makes this track so much more tragic is that the narrator counts down the ever shortening distance between themselves and his beloved Mary Ann, but he refuses to abandon his steed even when they get to within 100 yards of the house, dying alongside Dan when the horse can't walk any further.
"Cold Weather Blues" by Muddy Waters
The blues is a genre more often associated with the intense heat of the the summer than the desperate cold of the winter, due to the warmer climes from which it arose, which is probably why bluesmen were more bothered by snow than regular northerners (similar to how Californians treat snow with more alarm than earthquakes). Muddy Waters was born near the Louisiana border in Mississippi but made his name in Chicago, where the winters are brutal and the wind off of Lake Michigan intensely cold. You can hear his voice trembling as he laments his geographical position, almost as if he's shivering while playing the guitar.
"Snowbound" by Genesis
We're not sure how to take this track from prog-rockers Genesis. The track was written by guitarist Mike Rutherford and can be taken either literally or metaphorically. Metaphorically, it perhaps suggests someone emotionally cold. Lietrally, and it seems that someone laid down in the snow in a contemplative/drunken moment and was buried/frozen during overnight snowfall, which blanketed the body in such a way that local children don't realize there's an actual human being frozen underneath, versus being some miracle of nature. We could be reading this wrong but it creeps us out either way. Obviosuly tell us what's up if you're in-the-know.
"Snow Covered Mound" by Ralph Stanley
No genre takes a more intense approach to death than bluegrass because many of the traditional songs passed down across generations relate how quickly it could come in regions that were still quite wild at the time the standards were written. Although we complain about snow now, a snowstorm in West Virginia during the 19th Century was truly a disaster waiting to happen. This track from icon Ralph Stanley and The Clinch Mountain Boys doesn't discuss the danger of the snow but does reference a grave buried beneath that mound of winter accumulation. The narrator's description of his mother's final resting place comes with a tone similar to the blues: accepting the inevitable is often the only way to make it bearable.
"Trapped Under Ice" by Metallica
Snow and wintry climates are a popular theme in metal music and no song best sums up the situation faced by Buffalo et al right now than the thrashiest of thrash songs, "Trapped Under Ice." New Yorkers might not be frozen in ice David Blaine-style but they, like Interpol, are trapped with nothing to look at aside from the walls of white pressed up against their windows. Metallica also captures the claustrophobia of being trapped indoors with this tight track and Kirk Hammett can only shred out multiple solos to keep his fingers warm.
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