Winter Songs: A Pigeons & Planes Playlist

As the temperature continues to drop, it's time to adjust our listening habits accordingly.

Winter music is a genre all its own, and if we want to talk seasonal preferences, it might be the best of the four: you can't lay out in the sun or soak in life's carefree excesses in winter. As everyone from Joni Mitchell to Nas is about to prove, the winter is about careful, meticulous songwriting that spurns the cold, dark outdoors for something more personal.

We pulled together 20 of our favorite winter songs. Some are obvious picks, while others just feel like they should be heard in cold weather. In any event, they're all here in one place to warm you up during the hibernation period. See you in the spring.

Year: 2009

Cozy, crackling fires and the muffled silence of snow are the perfect backdrop for Bon Iver. All erotic flannel jokes aside, there's something about the acoustic guitar and unhurried, cascading melodies on For Emma, Forever Ago and the Blood Bank EP that puts Justin Vernon's music in a very specific, very wintery place.

"Beach Baby" isn't a long song, but it's a tight song. The two verses paint a picture of loss and departure, but it's someone else who's leaving. Vernon stays right by the fire, softly strumming away.

Year: 2014

True, "Heavenly Father" has a very snowy music video that follows Isaiah Rashad around New York City mid-blizzard.

But that's not the only reason it made the cut. The bright guitar chords and Rashad's rolling flow make this a modern Christmas classic (even if the lyrics are a little darker than your average carol), especially when SZA whips in with that breathy, wind-swept hook.

Year: 2001

Phil Elverum's masterful third album as The Microphones is often compared to the harsh and quite often beautiful qualities of nature as a whole, but there's a very homely quality to The Glow Pt. 2, and its title track in particular.

Just like the "awful feeling of electric heat" Elverum dwells upon on "I Want Wind To Blow," the entire album perfectly encapsulates both the negative and the positive feelings of winter, and no song on the album sums up those feelings up better than this operatic track.

Year: 2004

Not all winter songs need to be shivering and cold. There are plenty of good times that happen during colder months, and Feist is here to remind us of a few as she's "helping the kids out of their coats."

The lyrics paint a rosy picture of time and aging: "We'll collect the moments one by one / I guess that's how the future's done," Feist sings. When she's dishing out truths over such a jaunty beat and with such a beautiful voice, it's hard to disagree.

Year: 2001

Richard D. James has proved to be more than capable of switching styles seamlessly throughout all of his discography as Aphex Twin, but his sparse ambient work still cuts the deepest.

"Avril 14th" might be one of his simplest compositions, but it's also one of his best, and that's saying a lot. Emulating the same warmth felt after coming in from heavy snow and resting by a warm fire, there's something immensely comforting about "Avril 14th."

Its gentle progression is the aural form of seeing the first snowflake of winter fall, and there's few things quite as beautiful as that.

Year: 2010

Kanye West wrote a Christmas song, and it's a classy affair. Humming strings and festive piano provide the backdrop for a G.O.O.D Music potluck: Cam'ron, Jim Jones, Vado, Cyhi Da Prynce, Pusha-T, Musiq Soulchild, Teyana Taylor, and Big Sean all stop by to share a verse and get in to the holiday spirit.

Year: 2008

It seems obvious to include a song with such a title on this playlist, but few songs channel the winter season as well as Fleet Foxes' "White Winter Hymnal." While the collective's 2008 self-titled album is filled with stunning songs, "White Winter Hymnal" brightly captures a sense of renewal—something many of us look towards as a new year begins—through lush, layered vocals and pastoral instrumentation. It's the perfect soundtrack to that one pristine week between Christmas and the new year when everything slows down, and there are finally some moments of calm.

Year: 2014

St. Vincent's self-titled project was one of the best albums of 2014, but even after many, many, listens, there is a cold distance present. The album is sharp, clean, and frigid, and "I Prefer Your Love" is the perfect soundtrack for icicle season.

Year: 2013

It's been said time and time again that Burial's music captures that magical feeling of a rainy evening better than any artist, and "Hiders" provides solid proof of why that's such a commonly used analogy for his idiosyncratic sound. Accompanied by his signature samples complete with ethereal longing, "Hiders" is as reflective as it is hopeful, capturing that feeling that only traveling home for the holidays can truly evoke.

Year: 2013

Matthew Houck, the man behind Phosphorescent, wrote his sixth album Muchacho during a difficult period. "My life, to be honest, sort of fell apart," he said, "and in the process of getting it back together, these songs came. I couldn't ignore them."

After getting kicked out of his Brooklyn studio and with a relationship falling apart, Houck took some time for himself in the small town of Tulum, Mexico, where the ideas for the record started to form. As you might expect with this backstory, there is no shortage of sadness on the record, but there are also moments of hope—the sun breaking through the dark clouds of despair, shining bright on a crisp winter morning. Such is the case on Muchacho's final track, "Sun's Arising (A Koan, An Exit)."

Year: 2004

Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood #1" is a beautiful song, featuring twinkling, gentle instrumentation that slowly builds into a crashing crescendo. The energy of the song is much like the hustle and bustle of the holiday season: every December creeps up on you, and before you know it, after dozens of holiday parties, it's a new year.

But on top of what the instrumentation channels, the lyrics paint a picture of escapism and longing, of nostalgia and reflection, pulling together these ideas and feelings that dominate our minds during winter as the year comes to a close.

Year: 1994

Jingle bells never sounded so sinister. "Halftime," one of Nas' greatest hits, was made for the cold. From the Queensbridge projects to Sundance film sets, Nas' flow has remained timelessly cold for more than 20 years.

Year: 1999

There's a distinctly frosty quality to most of Sigur Rós' output, but nothing quite matches "Svefen-g-englar." With its long, beautifully drawn-out opening, all the way to Jónsi's absolutely wonderful vocals, "Svefn-g-englar" is somehow even prettier than any winter lights could ever hope of being. If snowcore were a legitimate genre, there's no doubt that Sigur Rós would be the leading creatives to go under the non-existent tag.

Year: 2015

English duo Honne has been consistently impressive this year, but this collaboration with Londoner Jones might be the best of the bunch. "No Place Like Home" is the result of a bout of homesickness caught in Tokyo, and you can really hear the aching separation in their respective vocals.

Year: 2014

Ryan Hemsworth and vocalist Dawn Golden teamed up for a heartbreaker last fall when they released "Snow In Newark." It was the first single off Hemsworth's Alone For The First Time, setting the tone for the melancholic dance rhythms that defined the album.

Music-box chords and drumline rhythms flow together beautifully on "Newark," and Golden's voice is a pitch-perfect combination of of regret and croaky loneliness. A.K.A., winter.

Year: 1996

A classic track, through and through. Belle & Sebastian's vocals are always so pristine, and "Fox in the Snow" is no exception. It appears on the band's If You're Feeling Sinister, a collection of understated pop songs that the seven-piece band pulls off beautifully. "Fox In The Snow" is a song that pulls you in slowly and won't let go, a blanket for the chilly nights.

Year: 2004

Ruff Sqwad were a collective of producers and MCs (and childhood friends) who were a key part of grime's origins. The crew gave us certified classic grime instrumentals like "Pied Piper," "Misty Cold," and, one of the best there is, "Functions on the Low."

Produced by XTC, it's an icily cold but totally beautiful beat—imagine riding on the back of an eagle over snow-capped mountains and you're somewhere close. Not a track that would appear on most people's winter playlists, but brilliant nonetheless.

"Functions" was re-released on Ruff Sqwad's White Label Classics compilation in 2012, an essential introduction to the sound of grime's early days.

Year: 2004

For all the warm, sunny music Animal Collective have put out in their time, it's easy to forget how some of their earlier output sounded. While the second half of "Winter's Love" sticks closer to the Animal Collective sound we're familiar with today, the first half sounds like the group got together in the studio and improvised a lovely melody for warmth. It's more of a "wow look how cold it looks outside" kind of winter song, but it's a winter song no less.

Year: 1966

With a song as beautiful as "Urge For Going," it's probably best to let the artist explain. Joni introduced the song like this at the 1967 Gerde's Folk City:

"This song is all about winters in Saskatchewan... it gets pretty cold out there. In the summer it gets as hot as 110 degrees sometimes. That’s a record, of course. That’s an extreme. But in the winter it sometimes gets as low as 50 and 60 below zero... that’s another record at the other end. So, it really knows how to change out there—talk about going through changes."

"When winter comes along and the farms are all harvested and they don’t really have much to do if they don’t keep cattle. So most of them have winter houses in the Bahamas and Florida and they just escape, you know, to all the warm places like Philadelphia. The rest of the people who have to stay there feel sort of like this..."

Year: 2008

Spiritualized's 1997 album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space is their best known and most highly acclaimed, but 2008's Songs in A&E, released after Jason Pierce was hospitalized and put in intensive care with pneumonia and associated problems, has some truly special songs.

"Sweet Talk" is one of those—it's a stare out of the window reflecting on life, watching the snow falling or the grey clouds drifting by kind of song.