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Aztec Camera - Walk Out to Winter

Happy winter, everyone. May it be mild and dry. Like your mom.

Aztec Camera - Walk Out to Winter

For themesong, a music meme. See here for details. The theme for today is (and here’s the calendar of themes) Ach Scottish.

I bought this album in the winter of 1983. I had the 12” version of Oblivious already (I still have it!) but hadn’t bothered to listen to anything else on the album. Then my first week working at Record World my manager put on High Land, Hard Rain and told me “You will fall in love with this record.” And I did.

I listened to it so much that winter I can’t play a single song from this album without thinking of being buried in snow. That winter was cold and long and white, filled with twelve hour shifts at the store, hockey games and shots of Jagermeister in shitty bars, our friend’s punk band playing songs about capitalism in shitty bars, plus the ensuing the results of calling off a wedding (hence the many shots of Jagermeister. Hey, I was only 21 what the FUCK was I thinking?).

There were many nights I’d come home exhausted, hungover before I even went to sleep and feeling like my life was beginning and ending at the same time. I’d sit in the dark listening to High Land Hard Rain and everything would go away for a little while as Roddy Frame - who was only 19 when this album was released-  lulled me into a wonderland of storytelling and soothing music. 

I listen to it now and it still takes me away, even when taking me back.

Good stuff. You should listen. You’ll fall in love with it.

(Aztec Camera)

Aztec Camera - Walk Out to Winter

High Land, Hard Rain is one of my winter comfort albums. I bought this in 1983 after hearing Oblivious on the radio and quickly fell in love with the whole damn thing. I wanted to put lyrics together Roddy Frame. I was mesmerized with the way he could tell a story, fill a song with emotions and wistfulness and warmth. Jesus, could this guy write. So few people have had the ability to string words and music together in a way that makes me feel a eureka moment, like I found four seconds of absolute perfection in a few notes and a sentence. 

I listened to this in the winter of 83, a winter that was tumultuous, a whole season that signaled the end to things and the beginning of things and all the emotion that comes when ending and beginnings meet head on. I know there were things that happened that in retrospect were not the best things but damn if they didn’t feel right at the time. I was 21. I was high on life. I was indestructible. 

I listen to this and I’m in that place where a snowstorm is raging and it’s so beautiful and cold outside and the world feels so warm. Nothing could go wrong. I’m glad we are always so blissfully unaware of the future. How else could we enjoy moments like this, moments before everything went to hell?

Faces of  Strummer that fell from the wall
But nothing is left where they hung
Sweet and bitter, they’re what we found
So drink them down and

Walk out to winter, swear I’ll be there
Chill will wake you, high and dry, you’ll wonder why
Walk out to winter, swear I’ll be there
Chance is buried just below the blinding snow

dresspants:

Aztec Camera - Jump

One of my favourite covers - I always sit back and enjoy when this one plays.

This is one of the greatest covers ever. I have it on vinyl - it was the flipside to the 12” of their single Oblivious. It’s really fantastic.