Winter Wonderland

Perry Como's "Winter Wonderland" is the most at-ease version of this song ever recorded. His voice has an almost impossible quality — a relaxed, middle-register baritone that sounds like it requires no effort whatsoever, as though he simply opened his mouth and the notes arranged themselves. The arrangement here is gently orchestral, with strings that cushion rather than swell, and a tempo that ambles rather than strides. If Bennett's version is a fireside moment and Sinatra's is a cocktail party, Como's is a Sunday afternoon with nothing particular to do — the most expansive and comfortable kind of time. He has a way of making lyrics land without apparent technique, so you hear the words first and the performance second, which is the hallmark of a truly great song stylist. The emotional landscape is pure ease: no tension, no drama, just the steady pleasure of a familiar thing done exactly right. Como was something of an anomaly in postwar pop — understated in an era that valued projection, unhurried when the industry was accelerating. His version of this song is a small argument for stillness. You'd choose it on a slow Saturday morning in December, when there's nowhere to be and the light through the window is the color of pewter, and you want the music to match the particular quality of that unhurried hour.