Bitter Beauty

And suddenly it was winter ...

Bitter Beauty, copyright GDrake 2017, Creative Commons (Attrib.)

The weather prognosticators said we were in for a “Sudden Winter Event.”

Okay, guys, new one on me but holy shit was that accurate. Winter was delivered with prejudice over a single night last week. I was so happy I didn’t have to do anything or go anywhere for 4 days (and a bonus day because more snow and I feel like I’m in 4th grade again lolling luxuriously in bed).

I love winter, and I love snow, and all the winter things - except maybe I’m not in love with the wind part. We don’t have normal wind much anymore. It’s deadly cold and battering. It comes in like a turbo-charged freight train and knocks you on your ass. It is not polite or whimsical at all. I don’t remember wind like this when I was a kid. Maybe I just blocked it out. But I don’t know.

We had about 10 inches of snow Friday night and all day Saturday, and now we’re getting a few more inches just to be sure we have enough. We lost power for a couple hours last night, and three hours this morning. Something serious is up with that. I hope they have fixed it up good and proper. The bitter cold is coming.

I love all the fascinating mythology surrounding the changing of the seasons, particularly the polarities that come into play. For this song, the Winter King is trying to impress the Maiden of Spring with his … wintery prowess. She’s simply snuggling further down under the covers and saying, “Sorry, Your Misrule-iness, I have a prior engagement with the King of the Summer Sky.”

Lyrics

The year has turned
And though the Sun’s returning
The cold grips us hard
Without quarter, without mercy
And snow softly lies
Because the Winter King
Still loves the Maiden fair

He’s at his zenith now
And he’s showing us his power
The Air his to command
And the Northern Mother answers
Her pale sprites rise 
And twirl in the twilight
Sky as it glows toward the dark

Ah, bitter beauty, sparkle and bite
Left in the wake of the Longest Night
But at the end of the tunnel there is a light
Around and round it goes

He holds on tight
But his grip is getting weaker
He knows this can’t last
So he gets a little meaner
And Death stalks the night
Animals and people 
Are escorted to his black and white land

We mourn at the loss
And we wonder and the beauty
And we wait through the dark
For the coming of the Lady
Drawing our chairs
Closer to the fire
We know the Light will triumph in the end

Ah, bitter beauty, sparkle and bite
Left in the wake of the Longest Night
But at the end of the tunnel there is a light
Around and round it goes

The year has turned
And though the Sun’s returning
The cold grips us hard
Without quarter, without mercy
And snow softly lies
Because the Winter King
Still loves the Maiden fair

Gear Box

The guitar in the video is my ~2000 Gallagher A70, and by 2020 I was definitely using some version of strings designed by Dean Farley. That’s my “librudio” in the basement, where I used to do some video recording of songs and occasionally see a healing client - and yes, I still keep a lot of books there, but the shelves now are literally overflowing, and the books have taken over major areas of real estate in the house.

Songwriter’s Workshop

I don’t remember much about how this song came to be, but I think it may have had something to do with the Small But Mighty Songwriters’ Group. Susan, you’ll have to remind me if so. It is kind of a blur. I think I wrote this after our first official Polar Vortex Event, which was also newfangled and fancy back in the day … and now they’re pretty much coming standard with every winter. But no climate change here, no sir, nothing to see, move along.

We’re in DADGAD, and you can actually watch the chord changes happen in the video above, how exciting! My British DNA is showing here in this song, a very Celtic sounding thing with a very Celtic story. There are things I really like about this song, and things I think I could have done a lot better. I do remember making a couple of changes because the melody and the chords were following each other too closely for comfort, but I can’t tell you exactly what they were. I suspect it was in the chorus, over the Longest Night, but I could be misremembering.

I don’t play this song very often, so it’s kind of nice to revisit it.

Sound Healer’s Planet

Winter is a dangerous time, not just for the body, but chiefly now for the mind and the heart. I’m a Creature of the Night so I don’t mind the long dark, in fact I rather relish it. But I get how the body sort of runs on daylight, and having so few well lit hours can be challenging.

One of my favorite kinds of light is what I call “snowlight,” which may or may not be a real word (it is now), which is when there’s fresh snow, maybe it’s still snowing, and it’s misty and all the light is just reflecting off all the snow flakes and freezing water droplets in the air, and it’s silvery and magical and gorgeous. It happened here Saturday night, and I stood outside for way too long just awestruck by the beauty of it. One could almost have read by the snowlight, it was that bright. Maybe this song leaves a little impression of that kind of magic. I hope it does.