Song Of The Week Dec 15 - Dec 21: Song For A Winter's Night

Again, dear reader, my apologies. I took a mini-sabbatical from The Sonic Landscape at the end of November, and when you take a break from something that isn't required for the sustenance of your family, it's sometimes hard to jump back into it. I am, however, pretty excited about this SOTW; it's part one of a two-week Christmas series that my wife encouraged me to write. I've noticed that things generally go better when I follow her advice.

I guess this is also a shout-out to my peeps in Canada, y'all (wait...maybe I'm not racially qualified to use that language...), since the artists involved hail from Ontario and Nova Scotia. "Song For A Winter's Night" is the name our featured track, and it was written by one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Gordon Lightfoot. Unfortunately, you probably know him because of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," but don't be afraid. He has so much more to offer. He originally recorded "Song For A Winter's Night" in 1967 as part of his LP The Way I Feel. We won't focus on that recording, but we will examine Sarah McLachlan's cover of the song from her 2006 release Wintersong.

My first exposure to McLachlan's music was when I was in junior high. My older sister got into McLachlan's fourth album Surfacing, and at the time, I didn't pay much attention. It wasn't until a few months ago that I came across the album again and realized just how good it was. It has some of the most beautifully arranged tracks I've heard, and Sarah McLachlan's voice is one of the loveliest in contemporary music. Anyway, rediscovering Surfacing was like the experience of learning a new word and then immediately noticing how often people use it; I started becoming much more conscious of McLachlan's work, and that's why I noticed her 2006 release Wintersong. Holiday albums give artists an open-ended opportunity to brand themselves as either cheesy or classy, and McLachlan definitively chose the latter path with Wintersong.

McLachlan employs her richly expressive vocals to re-tell Lightfoot's account of wintry-love-gone-abroad. When I listen to the song, I picture a mountain cabin that's been flanked by snowdrifts. Inside, we find a sparsely furnished room with a single table and chair. I also picture a dusty kerosene lamp on the table. For me, the most compelling part of the song is the fact that the lonesome narrator stays up all night as she reads the love letter she's received. McLachlan really envisioned herself in this role, and the proof is in the pudding: if you weren't familiar with Lightfoot's original, you'd think that McLachlan had written the track from personal experience. Yet another example of great musical artistry... she took an old song and made it new again, but in an authentic way. So until next week, enjoy this great version of "Song For A Winter's Night," and here's hoping that you all have someone to snuggle up to. It's cold outside.