White Winter Hymnal lyrics

A beautiful song where the lyrics were written to fit the melodyx

Read the sleeve notes guys; it's all there! Just a song about childhood memory being modified by a photograph of the remembered scene.

Michael died. "white snow red as strawberries" means blood. It's a beautiful song.

Interpretations are all over the place. The song seems to be a practice of modern art where as we look at the piece (the lyrics) we interpret it how we want. Whatever meaning you derive from it is what real and important to you. The words fit the melody? Maybe. Perhaps nothing more than that, yet the plethera (yes... Plethera) of attempts is colorful and vast. Fleet foxes just provided us the canvas, we are doing the painting, as it were... Is it intentional? I don't know.

It is good to see that this wonderful song has made people think. And clearly those that replied to the question are relating it to personal experience or interest. That is what art, whether it be music, painting, writing, or otherwise should do.

Just keep thinking.

I think it just a clever asortment of words that fit the meledy they wrote... Not ever thing has to have a meaning but what ever it makes feel good if we think we figured the song out... Thanks for reading.

According to jo whiley coyote, it's about a friend of theirs, michael, who got caught up in gang culture.

"i was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats"

Kids in hoodies.

"with scarves of red tied 'round their throats
to keep their little heads
from fallin' in the snow"

Wearing their gang colours, so other gang members will recognise them and not 'blow their heads off'.

"and i turned 'round and there you go"

One minute you're my friend, the next you've gone and joined the gang.

"and, michael, you would fall
and turn the white snow red as strawberries
in the summertime... "

Michael was stabbed/shot, his blood colouring the snow a bright red as he bled to death.

Rip michael.

It seems to have a much more ordinary meaning to me - i picture a class of small school children, who have been watching the snow fall from the classroom. Break time arrives and, in their excitement, they all go charging out, with the narrator "following the pack". "swallowed in their coats" refers to the small size of the children, wrapped up in their bulky winter coats with the scarves of red perhaps being part of the school uniform. The scarves are tied tightly to protect them from the cold, so tightly that it seems that they have been pulled tight to "stop their little heads from falling in the snow". "i turned around and there you go" conjures up images of the narrator, himself a young child in the song turning to throw a snowball at his friend, michael, who falls as he tries to avoid it. As the snowball hits, michael suffers a burst nose dripping blood onto the snow. The metaphor of "strawberries in the summertime", to me, shows that while something unpleasant has happened, the boys are having fun and michael sees this accidental injury as part of the fun, not something to get upset about.

I think that this song is actually about the french revolution. White is the color of the people (as well as virtue and whatnot) in france and came about during the french revolution. The red scarf part could refer to the red ribbons that people would wear to commemorate those who died in the guillotine. Micheal (this is a stretch) could be the guillotine falling to kill king louis xvi of france in january, which would turn the snow red with blood.

It's possible, but that's my guess.

Right. To be honester, without your insight i might have forgotten the british were fighting in the american civil war. Do you think the battle they're recounting happened before or after the care bears volunteered their efforts, or were they still too busy drafting the magna carta?