I woke up to the radio
And the glare of a blanket of fallen snow
When I heard the DJ speak to me
In a voice that was thick as an evergreen
He announced all the schools that were closing
On my knees and pray
For a snowy day
Cause I need a break
And I wanna sled the day away
I need a snow day
In my other life, I'm a high school teacher. Among other things, this means that several times each year, my workday gets cancelled at the whim of weather, a decision based primarily on whether or not a superintendent thinks that he can get the busses running safely.
Whether you've got kids or just were one once, you know the utterly exquisite, perfectly delicious feeling that is the impending dream of a snowday. But you've never seen that rare combination of glee and relief in its perfect state until you've lived with a teacher at the end of his rope, waking early to stare hopefully out the window, watching the flakes come pouring down while the radioman drones districts in the background. My wife says its like living with an extra-big kid. I take that as a compliment.
Here's Boston-based one man band Bleu with a totally high energy kid-friendly powerpop number that really captures the utter joy of the snow day experience: nothing deep, just two minutes twenty of sheer happiness. The winter ditty, complete with kidvoices and totally bitchin' guitar solo, was originally released on his 1999 holiday album A Bing Bang Holidang; I subsequently discovered it on the debut disk in my favorite indie kid series For The Kids, and can assure you that like the rest of the tunes on that fine disk, it may be officially for kids, but it's targeted towards the kid in all of us. Meet you on the sledding hill!
