Shagged with Ice

Here's two versions of a tune I like a great deal:

John Fahey: The Holly and the Ivy/The Cherry Tree Carol

Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band: The Holly and the Ivy

When I listen to this version, I get the feeling a forest troll is going to climb through the floorboards and gnaw on my shoulder.

Eddy Arnold: Up On the Housetop

Before he became a country superstar with 100 hits in the Billboard 100, Eddy Arnold was a driver for an undertaker. Sounds better than my job.

The Kingsbury Manx: Snow Angel Dance

Sure, it isn't a traditional Christmas tune, but these guys kick ass and they certainly have a mind of winter.

Burl Ives: Frosty the Snowman

This was Wallace Stevens' favorite version. Actually, he used to sing it in the bubble bath. It even inspired him to write this:

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

PC