Winter Winds

This song arrives like a gust of cold air — brisk, invigorating, and carrying the particular joy of something difficult being met with good humor. The arrangement has a rollicking, almost Celtic energy: acoustic guitar and banjo chasing each other through a tempo that wants your foot moving, underscored by bass notes that give the whole thing a satisfying thump. It's one of the warmer-sounding entries in their catalog, the kind of song that seems to bounce slightly even in its quieter passages. Mumford's voice here has a grin in it, a vocal lightness that contrasts interestingly with the emotional content, which is actually quite exposed — about the vulnerability of loving someone and facing the possibility that you're not quite enough for them. The cold of the title and season becomes a metaphor for emotional defenselessness, the stripped-back feeling of standing somewhere open with nothing to hide behind. Yet the musical energy refuses despair; there's resilience in the very way it charges forward, as though motion itself is the answer. It's a song of the folk revival's communal dimension — you can almost hear it being played in a cramped London pub, voices piling in on the chorus. Best heard in October, with a coat on, going somewhere on foot.