The Winter Months: February

Dar Williams: February

[purchase]

When a singer-songwriter describes one of her songs as a favourite you know you’re on to a good thing. So it is with “February” from Dar Williams’ 1996 Mortal City album, possibly her best (if one disregards her contribution to the solitary and wonderful album by Cry Cry Cry).

February’s sadness — the song is about a relationship going cold and dead — is underscored by Erik Friedlander’s unobtrusive cello. What great lyrics: “First we forgot where we’d planted those bulbs last year; then we forgot that wed planted at all; then we forgot what plants are altogether; and I blamed you for my freezing and forgetting and the nights were long and cold and scary. Can we live through February?”