Win Butler sounds like he's ready to cry as he trembles through the emotionally devastating ballad that ushers you into the magic of "Funeral," the album that established Arcade Fire as the heroes of a Pitchfork-reading generation. This richly orchestrated highlight of the criminally underrated "Goat's Head Soup" is a lover's lament with winter as its melancholy backdrop. Having set the scene with his soulful pouting of "And it's sure been a cold, cold winter," Mick Jagger goes on to sing, "And I wish I'd been out in California / When the lights on all the Christmas trees went out" before bringing the song to a climax with "Sometimes I wanna wrap my coat around you" and "Sometimes I wanna keep you warm." It's a breathtaking ballad, from Jagger's delivery to the strings, Nicky Hopkins' piano and Mick Taylor blurring the lines between country and jazz on lead guitar. But there have been many classic odes to winter in pop-music history, from the Mamas & the Papas and the Rolling Stones to Kanye West and Arcade Fire. There are no winter champions as true as the Beach Boys were to summer.
And with each new season comes the opportunity to make a playlist of songs that find artists saluting, decrying or otherwise embodying that time of year. Seasons change, as the Guess Who, Expose and countless other artists I can't quite remember have so memorably put it.
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