walking in winter
Release Date: 9/97
Albums: NEVEREST
Writer: ADAM MARSLAND
Lyrics:
Stepping through your thoughts
Like walking in winter
Down to size
In your eyes
Disappointed
Your complaints
Fallen saints
Self-anointed
I wish I was the wind
When the weather was unpleasant
Skies turn black
Tides roll back
Blame the crescent
I belong
Clear and strong
Omnipresent
Walking in winter
I feel like the snow trampelled underfoot
The world has turned rotten
My thoughts misbegotten and misunderstood
I wish I was the wind
I wish I had no skin
No skin to be too thin
FAILURE FAILURE FAILURE FAILURE
Walking in winter
I feel like my soul's trampelled underfoot
The world has turned rotten
My thoughts misbegotten and misunderstood
Adam sez:
The most personally revealing (or perhaps most vulnerable would be more accurate) song that I'd recorded up to this point, "Walking In Winter" walks the line between self-pity and self-recrimination (Your call as to which side it falls down on). I come from a family that has serious social deficits and had always had trouble communicating my true feelings and despite having an outgoing personality often felt out of my depth in social situations (sometimes still do).
During the 18 months prior to NEVEREST Cockeyed Ghost had ballooned into a fairly big local band, and I found myself dealing with hundreds of people a week in sometimes touchy or awkward ituations -- girls that were interested in me, bands that wanted a show, business people snooping around, etc. On one level I loved it, but the social learning curve was very steep and I frequently felt overwhelmed and was disturbed to discover that I'd amassed a fairly sizable list of enemies and detractors. Some of this was from me being naive and/or making bad judgment calls, but much of it also came from people that disliked me for what I REPRESENTED to them, or from me failing to act the way they wanted me to, and would project some fairly nasty (and usually false) motivations onto me. It bummed me out that people could be like that, but at the same time, I was really pissed at myself that I was so sensitive about it. I handle this kind of thing a bit better now, but this song is half me being very hurt and the other half me telling myself to toughen the fuck up, learn, and get on with my life.
One of the only slow tunes on NEVEREST, with its sonic space being a welcome relief from the density of the other instrumental tracks on the album, this song is really a showcase for my and Rob Cassell's intertwining vocals. The solo is actually a 6-string bass that Earle Mankey had lying around, in a tip of the hat to Burt Bacharach. The most powerful part of the song, however, is probably the Nirvana-esque "Failure" break -- the aural equivalent of repeatedly banging your own head into a door jamb -- that leads into the soaring outro, which is a tribute to an Australian band called Clouds which had a similar vocal approach to ours (but with female vocals). Rob completely slays on the ending counterpoint vocal and he may have arranged that part as well -- I don't honestly remember now. That guy had an amazing voice. After Rob left the band we pretty much retired this song.
At the beginning of the track there's a short, quiet sound effect of footsteps tramping through the snow. This is actually Robert Redford, from the 1972 film JEREMIAH JOHNSON. Earle would frequently take 4-6 hours methodically putting together a mix on headphones, during which time the band would be banished to the outer room. He had a little TV with a built in VCR there, and we would sit around and watch movies while we waited. This was one of the films that was viewed during that time, and we pulled a little piece of it into the final mix.