Composer Notes

Beware the Winter Settlin’ In was conceived in 2016 as a rebuke to my country’s budding isolationism. A political campaign was gaining ground by stoking anti-immigrant sentiment and religious prejudice. A chill was taking hold in a country that claimed to be a place of refuge and hospitality. I spun that fear and anger into a rowdy winter song full of jig rhythms, Gaelic mouth-music, and spirited clapping. Yes, a song of welcome and good cheer…but with a dire warning at its core. A Very Merry Cautionary Song, as it were.

A decade later, as I watched that chill grow into a merciless tempest in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, I found myself taking another look at Beware the Winter Settlin’ In. The song’s warning about making enemies of friends felt truer than ever:

For dread can worry a hope to naught
And fear can trump a kindly thought
And that can render a friend forgot
As quickly as a blinkin’.

If that wasn’t enough, some of the metaphors now had an unsettling new meaning:

When days take on a dimmer cast,
And meadowsweet be ages past,
It seems the punishin’ icy blast
Will never be spent and leavin’.

Gut punch.

And then there were the final lines. I could no longer hear them as just a longing for spring to return. It was almost impossible not to imagine those hiding shoots as “huddled masses”:

Tho’ it be long ‘til winter’s end,
Come laugh and sing with me, my friend
A song to hurry the ice to bend
And shoots to quit their hidin’!

There was just one thing getting in the way of most choirs performing Beware the Winter Settlin’ In. As originally scored, the song called for an unwieldy combination of adult and children’s choirs, flute, harp (modern or Irish), bodhrán, and an unusual assortment of strings. It was clearly time to remove that obstacle! I rolled up my sleeves and rescored the piece for adult choir, flute, violin, piano, and bodhrán or large frame drum, with the children’s choir now optional.

Alright then. Now the song itself was as welcoming as its embracing message.