Songs About Winter
Songs About Winter Are Lovely But Sad
Source: VOA Templet: lli_go
VOICE ONE: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara Klein.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember. This week on our program, we play some favorite songs about winter.
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VOICE ONE:
It is winter in many parts of the world. For some areas, that means snow. Maybe even lots of snow. If you do not have to drive in it or remove it, snow can be very beautiful.
When snow covers everything around you, the world looks like a "winter wonderland." That is the name of a very popular song about winter. Richard Smith and Felix Bernard wrote the song way back in nineteen thirty-four. There are hundreds of recordings of this happy song. Here is a lovely version by James Taylor.
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VOICE TWO:
But winter is not always such a beautiful and happy time. It is cold outside. The wind blows to make it even colder. You try hard to keep warm. The days are shorter and darker. The sun rarely shines. The leaves on the trees are brown or have fallen to the ground. The flowers are mostly gone.
It is not surprising that some people are sad in winter. And some people dream about being somewhere else where it is warm and pretty -- like the state of California. The Mamas and the Papas recorded this famous song, "California Dreamin'," in nineteen sixty-five.
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VOICE ONE:
During the nineteen sixties, many other famous rock groups released songs about winter. Here is a poetic song by Simon and Garfunkel called "A Hazy Shade of Winter." They sing about life and hope and possibilities.
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VOICE TWO: In nineteen sixty-eight, the group Blood, Sweat and Tears recorded this gentle, sad song about winter. They sing about a lost love and forgotten memories in "Sometimes in Winter."
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VOICE ONE:
In the early nineteen nineties, Tori Amos wrote and recorded this beautiful song called "Winter." She sings about when she was a child.
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VOICE TWO:
Gordon Lightfoot wrote and recorded another sad and lovely song about winter in nineteen seventy-five. Sarah McLachlan recorded "Song for a Winter's Night" for an album in two thousand six. She sings about reading a love letter and wishing the writer were with her now.
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VOICE ONE:
Finally, on a happier note comes this song written and recorded by Fountains of Wayne in two thousand three. They sing about a snowstorm in a New England town. Nothing unusual there. But instead of being sad or tense about the snow, they write a song about it. We leave you with "Valley Winter Song."
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VOICE TWO: This program was written by Shelley Gollust and produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember. VOICE ONE: And I’m Barbara Klein. Our programs are online with transcripts and MP3 files at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.
Rebecca Lin 2008 Winter In USA | 
Good afternoon to you.
Have a nice week,
Rebecca
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Some use winter to suggest death, as in Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". Some use it to suggest the absence of hope, as in C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where it was always winter but never Christmas.
Winter is one concerto in Antonio Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons"; and there are many examples of four paintings, all showing the same scene in different seasons.
Ursula K. LeGuin's novel The Left Hand of Darkness is set on a planet named Winter. In Alex Raymond's comic strip, Flash Gordon, there is a land called Frigia, where it is always winter. The land of Frigia is also featured in the serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe.
Other uses of winter in the graphic arts occur in Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland. There are many films in which a winter setting plays an important role, Fargo being an example. Novels such as Ethan Frome also use a winter setting to mirror the bleak, frozen feelings that the characters harbor. The film Requiem for a Dream concludes with "Act III: Winter", in which the movie reaches its hellish and chilling climax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Passing seasons change the habits and moods of people. During the winter months in the northern hemisphere, a gloominess nicknamed "winter blues", "February blahs", "Holiday depression", or doldrums, is informally noted amongst people. The severest cases of this type of depression is diagnosed as seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Symptoms include sleeping more, tiredness, depression, and physical aches.
Although causes include genetic disposition and stress, the prevailing environmental influence is decreased exposure to light because of the angle of the sun and cloudcover and the increased amount of clothing that must be worn to keep warm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Winter is one of the four seasons of temperate zones. North American calendars go by astronomy and state that winter begins on the winter solstice and ends on the vernal equinox.
Calculated meteorologically, it begins and ends earlier (typically at the start of the month with the equinox or solstice) and is the season with the shortest days and the lowest temperatures. Either way, it generally has cold weather and, especially in the higher latitudes or altitudes, snow and ice. The coldest average temperatures of the season are typically experienced in January in the Northern Hemisphere and in July in the Southern Hemisphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter