Fall Into Winter: songs for seasonal transition

by editor Michele Catalano

The weather forecast for next week looks like this: hoodies, boots, football, electric blanket. It will only top out in the mid 60s during the day, 40s at night. The sun will set at 6:20 tonight, but it will start to feel like the day is over by five as the autumn shadows make themselves known. There’s only one thing to do when this happens. Let’s play some records.

I have this ritual I engage in every October. I take out all the albums that feel like fall or winter to me. I spread them out around me on the floor. I light a fall-scented candle, put on a hoodie and leggings, and pour a cup of apple cider. Maybe I have some apple cider donuts on hand. And then I begin. I play the records one by one, and as I listen, I revel in the arrival of real autumn days and nights. 

I have playlists for spring and summer, but for some reason, I don’t give them the same care I give to my fall/winter playlists. Maybe because fall is my favorite time of year, or maybe it’s because I savor the early darkness, the cool air, the World Series, Halloween, the foliage. This atmosphere demands a soundtrack. So I oblige. 

The records strewn around me make for a familiar canvas. Some albums are ever-present on this fall journey. The National’s Boxer and Alligator are always first. There is nothing that speaks to me of autumn and winter more than these two albums, and I start the proceedings accordingly. When I get to “Apartment Story,” I know I am really there. Is it a love song or an ode to seasonal affective disorder? No matter. It’s a love song to me, one that makes the otherwise dark, confining claustrophobia of winter seem like something to savor in lieu of taking part in life outside your door. Hiding out, maybe getting drunk and listening to records while you wait for some kind of unpleasantness to intrude on you, barring the door against not only the winter but the pretense of life, of going through the motions of facing the world as put-together human beings rather than the fractured people we are. Sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave has always struck me as romanticized agoraphobia, making “Apartment Story” a perfect song for the frightened, the fractured, the weary, and those we bring down into the abyss of our winters with us.

***

One fall day a few years ago I was driving home from work when Sirius XMU played a song I had never heard before. You ever fall in love with a song on first listen? There was something about Band of Horses’ “Is There a Ghost” that pulled me and held me there for the entire three minutes flat. I made a note of the song name, and when I got home I immediately queued up the song on Spotify. I listened to it 10 times before I played the rest of the record, and when that was over I immediately ordered the vinyl. It is now included in my fall floor collage of important albums. 

“Is There a Ghost” is a sparse kind of song; there’s not much to the lyrics, and the melody repeats and repeats, but it feels compelling. I could sleep…when I lived alone. Is there a ghost in my house is sung by Ben Bridwell with a plaintive cry, a weary wail. I think about ghosts in my house, a specific ghost, really, who haunts me all year, but whose presence feels so much bigger in fall and winter. A ghost is just an absence of a person. That absence also haunts. “Is There a Ghost” builds and builds, the way fall starts off faint and promising and, when it reaches its crescendo, you’re standing in three feet of snow. The song reaches me in that space I save for dark days and haunted nights. 

***

I push through the pile, deciding what to listen to next. Do I want to feel like I’m on a pumpkin patch hayride, or do I want the aura of a deserted town strewn with dead leaves and bare trees? The White Stripes call to me here; “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” is a perfect fall song and White Blood Cells a perfect fall album.

“Dead Leaves” starts off with a little guitar screech and then launches into what might be one of the best love songs ever made. It’s about missing someone in a deep, abiding way. It’s about being so in love with someone, so fully devoted that you feel you can’t stand to be without them. And it speaks autumn and winter to me; it speaks of 4 p.m. darkness and cold nights alone, that longing for a warm body to get you through. As much as “Is There a Ghost” is haunting, “Dead Leaves” possesses something deeper, a rawness that makes for hearing ghosts who scream instead of whisper.

***

I contemplate what to play next. There’s Sarah McLachlan, Yo La Tengo, Death Cab for Cutie, Nine Inch Nails. But my eye catches on Fleet Foxes’ self-titled album, and I get a little giddy because “White Winter Hymnal” is my favorite dark-season song. It’s a sing-song tune, played out like a lilting Christmas carol. The first time I heard it I thought it was a dainty little seasonal tune and put it on my Christmas playlist. Then I really listened to the words.

I was following the pack, all swallowed in their coats

With scarves of red tied ‘round their throats

To keep their little heads from falling in the snow

And I turned ‘round and there you go

And Michael, you would fall and turn the white snow red

As strawberries in the summertime

This is a horror story! It’s a horror story that takes place in winter, which makes it perfect for this time of year. It’s a transition song; it takes me from Halloween to Christmas, a bridge from The National to Perry Como. 

There’s so much more to go through, and I don’t want it to end. There is something so magical, so cozy about listening to records when it’s getting cold out. The magic of placing the record on the turntable, dropping the needle, closing the cover, and sitting back down on the floor to contemplate lyrics and hum melodies. This is my wallowing time but also my comfort time. I alternate between albums that make melancholy and albums that lift me up. I swing between fall and winter. I drink my cider and check the time. It’s six o’clock, almost dark. In a few short weeks, the sun will be setting closer to four thirty. I no longer combat the darkness like I did in my younger years. I no longer fear the winter months. I have my records and my ghosts to keep me company.