Winter Wonderland: Diagnosis for Murder!

In an effort to not sound like the most boring political blogger, I will once in a while write a personal essay on anything I feel strongly about. Today, it's the lyrics of "Winter Wonderland" and the sinister undertone I believe the song represents. This has nothing to do with politics or history. This has to do with it being Friday and not wanting to share my thoughts on anything but a Christmas song's dark metaphor. Read this, it could save your life!

In the lyrics to "Winter Wonderland" by Richard B. Smith, do we hear the delights of Christmas and a deliriously joyful snowtopia or do we hear the whisperings of a brutal slaying in the Florida Everglades by two insane, oversexed, drug-crazed clown freaks? I'll let the lyrics speak for themself. "Sleigh bells ring/are you listening?/In the lane, snow is glistening./A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight/walking in a winter wonderland." Here we establish that there are two people walking in what would appear to be a snow covered lane in the evening. But when we strip away the veneer of lies, and exchange "sleigh bells" with police sirens (a common euphimism among cocaine dealers - so I am told) and "snow" with the obvious nose candy, a more frightening image arises. Instead we have a picture of two coked-up junkies in a fetid apartment. They lift their heads from the coffee table only when a police siren rings in their neighborhood, like animals listening for a predator at a water hole. Once satisfied they are safe, they continue shoving line after line of sweet white powder up their eroded nasal passages. And it only gets worse from here.

"Gone away is the bluebird here to stay is a new bird./He sings a love song as we go along/walking in a winter wonderland." This is where we find out the female coke fiend is already married to their coke supplier or as he is later referred to, "the snowman". "Gone away is the bluebird, here to stay is the new bird" is simply another expression for "my husband is gone and I now have another lover". Unfortunately, for the blue bird, it's going to get worse. A lot worse.

"In the meadow we can build a snowman./Then pretend that he is Parson Brown./He'll say: Are you married? we'll say: No man/But you can do the job when you're in town." At this point we are introduced to "Parson Brown" and it gets seriously ugly. Parson Brown is probably the scariest character in a song lyric I have ever come across and no, Virginia, he is not a real Parson. Simply put, he is a vicious murderer who will kill you as soon as put on shoes. These two coke-addled adulterers turn to Parson Brown to assist in killing "the snowman". Parson then asks if they are married to each other, and they reply, "No, but we'd like to be, if you know what I'm saying." Parson Brown understands very well what they are saying and promises to murder the unsuspecting husband the next time he's in the neighborhood, so casual is his relationship with the value of human life.

This next stanza is fairly cut and dry: "Later on we'll conspire/as we dream by the fire./To face unafraid, the plans that we've made/walking in a winter wonderland." Here we have the image of the two waiting for Parson Brown to return with news of the killing while burning all evidence of their connection in a fire. It is a respite from the horrors of the song as the listener is taunted with images of these two quietly imagining their life together once they collect her husband's insurance money.

The last two stanzas are some of the most disturbing and terrifying lyrics I have ever heard. Read, if you can: "In the meadow we can build a snowman and pretend that he's a circus clown./We'll have lots of fun with mister snowman until the alligators knock him down." It is implied that Parson Brown does not return with news of the murder, but instead with the living person of her husband. They bring him to the swamp and, for some reason maybe only Mr. Smith is privy, they "pretend that he's a circus clown" or dress "the snowman" (husband/coke supplier) up as a clown. After all, why not humiliate the guy by first dressing him up as a clown before torturing him? That's when the real party begins.

Conjure in your mind's eye being at the mercy of two violent coke gremlins and a professional killer and all that their imaginations can give birth to in a swamp while they 'have lots of fun' with a helpless clown. What would fun look like to those three? I don't want to know. Afterwards, they leave his tortured and almost lifeless body as food for alligators. It's perfect. If the police ever find his chewed up body, it'll be dressed as a clown. It'll look like he went insane, put on a clown outfit and ran through the Florida Everglades until his untimely demise in a crocodile's intestines. And now, the taunting end: "When it snows ain't it thrilling./Though your nose gets a chilling./We'll frolic and play the Eskimo way,/walking in a winter wonderland." I don't know if anything needs to be said here. The two, once they've fed the husband to the swamp beasts, now embark on a sickening display of cocaine usage not seen again until the 1980s.

I understand a lot of people will view this as nonsense, but the facts are there, right in front of your eyes and they've been there all along. If you choose to view this song as a brainless tribute to the delights of winter, be my guest. But for those of you who will "face unafraid" this song's true message, I encourage you to learn from this morality tale. Don't do cocaine. Don't conspire to kill your coke dealing spouse in a humiliating, clown related death and don't EVER turn to Parson Brown. He is one bad man.