Sound Bites: 'White Winter Hymnal' — Fleet Foxes

17 years on from its release, discover Andrew's own personal take on this seasonal, contemporary classic.

What, when and Why White Winter Hymnal?

The first time I heard this track, the first single from their eponymous debut album in 2008, was when I doing my Masters at St Andrew's. Somebody was making soup in a kitchen in a house where they rented a room, outside of the main town, in the country. I remember it being a vegetable soup and a good one too (one with halved baby potatoes in it and a good salty broth), but more importantly I remember the music coming being played in the background. It must have been a bright winter's day as I remember the soup, the sunlight, the northerly location and the music all seemed, in that moment, to chime with each other. I went home forgetting to ask who the band was and could have kicked myself as the sound of the melody and harmony wouldn't leave me alone for days. In fact when I eventually tracked it down and heard it again it seemed somehow diminished for not being in the context I first heard it, but still powerful and a track I couldn't stop listening to. While some songs take longer for us to love, perhaps there are some others which impress more on first listening than they ever will again. I remember seeing Fleet Foxes at Green Man Festival in the Brecon Beacons in the summer of 2018. The first time I heard the track it was 2008 and by 2018 they had grown in status to be worthy of headlining the Saturday night. But, for me, the big stage and the massive speakers in an open field seemed somehow to go against everything I love the Fleet Foxes for which is a much more intimate, acoustic, melodic sound. In spite of all this, I've some to see 'White Winter Hymnal' as not just a kind of unofficial, secular carol of sorts, but a song which captures the sensibility the season. There is a certain warmth to be found in the song which is at odds with the wintry, reverberated, repeated, chant-like lyrics. But, as I've mentioned before many times, it is surely this balance which is found in all great, memorable art. And ever since that day in somebody's kitchen in Fife I've never really been able to shake this song.

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