The 10 Best Songs about Being Cold
Cold is not only a feeling during winter; it’s also a metaphor used in many songs. The feelings of being cold can be your heart when love ends, a chilly winter day, or when life has thrown you a curveball. Nonetheless, the colder seasons of the year are when many people feel moodier because they can’t go out as much or are alone for seasons like Christmas or New Year. Being left out in the cold can happen on a warm summer evening when everything goes wrong. There are so many ways to use cold that it’s only natural that there are thousands of songs about winter days, icy hearts, the cold feeling of being alone in a crowded room, or even committing murder. These are the top ten songs about being cold.
10. Cold Blooded – Rick James
This song was released in 1983. At the time, he was dating Linda Blair, the actress in the Exorcist. The single from the album of the same name stayed at number one for six weeks and reached number 40 on the Hot 100. The adage ice in the veins is a sad reality for many people. Even though they are cold, the frost extends to the people they choose to spend their time with, even if their actions leave that person feeling alone.
9. Cold Hearted – Paula Abdul
Paula Abdul released Forever Your Girl in 1988. This song was the fifth single. She wrote this song after breaking up with John Stamos because he was always flirting with other women. Sometimes coldness is a lack of attention or when it’s spread around to everyone around you in equal measures. The chill we feel is because of a cold shoulder from someone who turned out much differently than you initially thought.
8. Cold As You – Taylor Swift
According to genius.com, this song was the start of track fives on Swift’s albums being emotive songs about love. The song’s refrain speaks about a man who is so cold and emotionally unavailable even while the heroine loves him through everything he is going through. One of the most challenging cold seasons is when our hearts are frozen in time by a love that didn’t work out.
7. Come In From The Cold – Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell is a master of poignant folk songs. Her sweeping voice haunting guitar, and lyrics meld perfectly with the message of this song. It’s about the feeling of finding love when you’ve been out in the cold of life alone. The message is timeless because so many times, life feels like it’s icy rain in our faces, and when we meet someone, it melts our hearts and allows us to warm our souls against them.
6. Hutchinson Jail – Nancy Sinatra
Sinatra sounds much like Loretta Lynn in this song, complete with a sass mixed with troubling lyrics. The song is about a woman who is convicted of shooting her lover who strayed. The jail image will chill a listener, but it’s a cold night in temperature and having to shut down some emotions to face what is coming next. Moreover, with the lyric “I’ll stay there til spring,” you feel sure she was convicted in the dead of winter and is probably sitting in a cell with no heat.
5. Stone Cold Dead In The Market (He Had It Coming) – Ella Fitzgerald
A misconception about women is that they are, by nature, warm and loving. Yet, many times a woman commits cruel acts because they can’t take another moment of abuse. Even though this song has an uptempo jazz beat, it’s a dark song about a woman whose husband came home from a night of drinking, and she killed him in cold blood.
4. Cold As Ice – Foreigner
Too often, people place material possessions over their friends and happy, thinking that having all the things in the world will keep them warm at night. Yet, without a group of people around you, you’re the one who’s left out in the cold. Mick Jones wrote this song with Lou Graham as a cautionary tale.
3. She’s So Cold – The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones recorded this song in 1980. A lot of times, cold is a state of mind not a temperature. In this song, Mick Jagger sings about a woman who is the proverbial ice queen. Many people make the mistake that they can melt people like that if they just try harder. Yet, when someone has spent their life shut down, they are used to the cold and don’t feel the need to come into the warmth.
2. Cold Wind Blows – Eminem
One of the saddest things that leave many people out in the cold is addiction. Eminem struggled through that issue and then released his album Recovery after getting sober from drugs and alcohol. The song is about the coldness of the world when life hits you after you’ve been numbing with drugs and alcohol. Throughout the lyrics, he raps about isolation and how being addicted leaves you out in the cold of life.
1. Cold Water – Tom Waits
Unfortunately, many homeless people sleep out in the cold every night. Waits’ lyrics give a comical spin on this. The song’s protagonist is a vagabond who spends his days wandering from one area to the next, unconcerned about anything. Some people have learned to deal with the cold and life circumstances that force them to live in the wide-open world without shelter.
Final Thoughts
Jean Cocteau said, “all good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.” As the colder seasons approach, we often listen to songs about snow and the holidays. Sometimes, the artistry of lyrics and musical composition can give us a sense of cold through their lyrics and emotions. Nonetheless, cold is often a state of mind or something we see reflected in another’s eyes or heart.
You can also read:
- The 20 Best Taylor Swift Songs of All-Time
- The 10 Best Frank Sinatra Songs of All-Time
- Ranking All The Foreigner Studio Albums
- The 10 Best Paula Abdul Songs of All-Time
- The 10 Best James Bay Songs of All-Time
