Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it is time for a fleeting (If you see what I did there…?) moment of cool reflection in the midst of ringing in the New Year, with yet another daily track on the blog, seeing that it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Although they took a reasonable hiatus between 2013 and 2016 so that lead singer-songwriter Robin Pecknold could pursue an undergraduate degree, the Washington-based Alternative Folk group of Fleet Foxes have always churned out their strong share of critically acclaimed and commercially successful material over the years and they released their fourth album – ‘Shore’ – as recently as last September via Anti- Records – a very enjoyable record that was featured on my ‘Top 25 Albums Of 2021’ list last January. The band stood up to prominence in mainstream consciousness, however, with the release of their self-titled debut album in 2008 via Bella Union Records. The hit that its associated Simon Raymonde-ran label needed to stay afloat at the time, the retro LP was the band’s first example of blending their refined vocal harmonies and tribalistic lyrical qualities together to widespread acclaim. The album was eventually made available to buy in places as common as your local Tesco’s supermarket shelves after it eventually reached #1 on the UK Albums Chart. Since being considered one of the best albums of the 2000’s and a highly impressive debut release, Fleet Foxes have continued to make ‘White Winter Hymnal’ a popular addition to festive playlists (both befitting of the Christmas and New Year’s season), a Silver-certified single full of beautifully layered vocals that has also been used in media productions like Hulu’s ‘The Path’ and 2015’s ‘Love The Coopers’. The track was also ranked as #66 on Pitchfork’s decade-end list of the greatest singles of the 00’s – and it has been covered by other established names such as television presenter Alexander Armstrong and A-capella act Pentatonix. Get swept away in the sound of ‘White Winter Hymnal’ below.

Issued on 7″ Vinyl as well as the digital MP3 format, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ was written by Pecknold from personal experience, as he was inspired to write the lyrics about a time where his friends ditched him in middle school. Although the lyrics might have been about childhood past, the source of the melody came from the familiar source of Walt Disney. Pecknold recounted to Rolling Stone during an interview in 2012, “The idea was a song like ‘Whistle While You Work’ from Snow White”, adding, “So it started with that very beginning thing, the first kind-of like, melody. And then once the verse was done, it just seemed like it lent itself to repetition”, in the discussion. Beginning with “I was following the pack” as the backing vocals of the band harmoniously overlap each other to capture the melancholy of winter and snow, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ was memorable for creating the effect of a dense cloud of harmonies that mimic a Cathedral reverb. Later lyrics like “White snow red as strawberries in the summertime” and “With scarves of red tied around their throats” feature imagery that is undeniably much stronger and the meaning of the track is left quite ambiguous. However, refrains like “To keep their little heads from falling in the snow” make me think of blindly following a bad influence without considering the repercussions. Instrumentally, the stirring drums and the ascending guitar melodies mimic the feeling of a sled that is riding down a path at a breakneck pace. The minimalist vocals, however, are more likely to convey a sense of contentment and peace, but the cavernous layered harmonies have a frosty and distant sound that relates to a white sheet of ice on a tranquill snowy morning. What was very interesting, and really quite groundbreaking, about the track is that, in seasonal terms, Indie and Pop music often tend to be more celebratory towards the summer season and, therefore, the qualities of a Christmas carol hidden in the melodies are more reminiscent of a traditional hymm and so Fleet Foxes’ ode to cool reflection in the winter was refreshing. Overall, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ had all the makings of a modern classic back in 2008 and that’s a quota that the Grammy-nominated band have fulfilled in 2021 with a recording that still sounds as gorgeous and as nostalgic as the first time it hit the radio airwaves. Cheers to a merry new year!

If you told me that Fleet Foxes were covered on the blog more recently – ‘Can I Believe You?’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/10/26/todays-track-fleet-foxes-can-i-believe-you/

That’s all for today and so all I have left to say for you in 2021 is… See you next year! Join me then for a special New Year’s Day edition of my regular posts tomorrow that you’ll really enjoy if you’re a fan of my weekly ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ feature! We’re going to be remembering a well-received late-70’s single by a prominent Scottish figure of the British Folk revival scene in the 60’s and 70’s. Famously described by AllMusic as “one of those mysterious woman songs”, the album of the same title as the song is a #5 hit in the US. The singer used to share a London flat with Paul Simon.

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