And That's Cold

My favorite song about cold weather (are there any others, really?) is "You Don't Wanna Know" by Loudon Wainwright. It makes me smile right off the bat, because he's got a marimba providing a Caribbean feel. The lyrics are very clever, too, especially if you know that it was written not long after he moved to London in the '80s, so he throws in lots of Britishisms. I'm going to adopt an HTML technique used by Kirsty (who is a Brit, so that's fitting) whereby I will underscore all the British words; when you let your mouse hover over them, the American meanings will pop up. You'll have to use your imagination for Loudon's always-great voice, and he does his own harmonies, too. This really is one of my favorite songs of his to sing along to.

It was colder than a witch's tit, colder than a polar bear's nose
Colder than the shoulder of my old flame, colder than hell, heaven knows
Not quite as cold as you think it is when the wind chill factors blow
But centigrade and fahrenheit, it felt way below zero.

The electric duvet was cranked way up to ten, the gas fire was on full blast
When I get the bills from both of those boards, I don't know if the money will last.
I was fully clothed in my entire wardrobe and I still couldn't feel my toes
Then the flat pipes burst and we had another first: The water in the toilet bowl froze.

When the radio ordered me to stay at home, I obeyed though I was miffed
But the roads were ice, there was a ton of snow, and when the wind blows, snow will drift
I was brushing and flossing my chattering teeth and in the mirror I saw my breath
Half frozen watching the TV news, the other half of me was worried to death.

They got helicopter rescues and freezin' old ladies, and the choo-choo trains won't go
On the M-4 there's a five-mile tailback, lorries jack-knifing in the snow
And it's summer down under in Australia, what gets under my skin:
On the TV they show us suntanned cricketers, they're just rubbing it in.

And they're saying it's from Siberia, that Communist Arctic zone
What we got is a Russian plot to make the world their ice-cream cone
Whether we're gonna get a break, the weatherman will not say
I took my dog for a walk and she took a crap, you won't smell it until April or May.

And the same thing happened here last year, but you don't wanna know
In England people walk around wearing raincoats and running shoes in the snow
You don't wear no hat or gloves, it don't make no sense
You still think with that silly umbrella you can conquer all of the elements.

It was the coldest day on record, in the coldest week in memory
It was the coldest month in the coldest year on the coldest night in history
But don't ask me how cold it was, you don't wanna know
But centigrade and fahrenheit, it felt way below zero.

Comments

[Kirsty]

The thing is, he wrote that about the UK, and it hardly ever gets *really* cold here. It was colder in Iceland in October than it has been here, even when it snowed.
That's the nice thing about the UK - the temperature is relatively stable all year round. Let's hope the Gulf Stream keeps flowing.

[Karen]

I imagine he wrote it in '87 or '88 or so (the CD was released in '89) -- do you recall whether there was a big snowstorm then? When I was there ('82), it was rainy and chilly but never snowy or cold.

[neal walker hanlin]

thank you so much! i am freezing my ass off right now and simply could not remember the name of that loudon song. much obliged! :-D

[Frank Black]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ58BY2Uwd4

http://fridaynightboys300.blogspot.com/