Lay your body down upon the midnight snow,
Feel the cold of winter in your hair
Here in a world of your own,
In a casing that's grown
To a children's delight
That arrived overnight.
And here they come to play their magic games
Carving names upon your frozen hand.
Here in a world of your own,
Like a sleeper whose eyes
Sees the pain with surprise
As it smothers your cries
They'll never never know.
Hey there's a Snowman
Hey, Hey what a Snowman
Pray for the Snowman
Ooh, Ooh what a Snowman
They say a snow year's a good year
Filled with the love of all who lie so deep.
Smiling faces tear your body to the ground
Covered red that only we can see.
Here in a ball that they made
From the snow on the ground,
See it rolling away
Wild eyes to the sky
They'll never, never know.
Hey there's a Snowman
Hey what a Snowman
Pray for the Snowman
Ooh, Ooh what a Snowman
They say a snow year's a good year
Filled with the love of all who lie so deep.
Hey there goes the Snowman
Hey there what a Snowman
Hey there lies the Snowman
Hey he was a Snowman
They say a snow year's a good year
Filled with the love of all who lie so deep.
Feel the cold of winter in your hair
Here in a world of your own,
In a casing that's grown
To a children's delight
That arrived overnight.
Carving names upon your frozen hand.
Here in a world of your own,
Like a sleeper whose eyes
Sees the pain with surprise
As it smothers your cries
They'll never never know.
Hey, Hey what a Snowman
Pray for the Snowman
Ooh, Ooh what a Snowman
They say a snow year's a good year
Filled with the love of all who lie so deep.
Covered red that only we can see.
Here in a ball that they made
From the snow on the ground,
See it rolling away
Wild eyes to the sky
They'll never, never know.
Hey what a Snowman
Pray for the Snowman
Ooh, Ooh what a Snowman
They say a snow year's a good year
Filled with the love of all who lie so deep.
Hey there what a Snowman
Hey there lies the Snowman
Hey he was a Snowman
They say a snow year's a good year
Filled with the love of all who lie so deep.
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This is (to me) great example of the visual storytelling ability of many of the earlier Genesis songs. It has a rather Grimm's feel to me, in that the storyteller is describing a traveler who chooses a poor night to sleep outside and is encased by an unexpected winter snowstorm and subsequently dies during the night from exposure. The local children arrive in the morning to play, ("here they come to play their magc games") only to discover a "snowman" on their playground. What follows is something best left to the imagination ('Here in a ball that they made/ From the snow on the ground,/ See it rolling away/ Wild eyes to the sky") or within the confines of a horror movie scriptwriter's mind. The score is gentle and soothing, but the story is anything but...
@Retired1sc Been a Genesis fan since 1970s. I think you nailed it!
@Retired1sc Been a Genesis fan since 1970s. I think you nailed it!
Obviously the parents of the children are lying and trying to pass something else off as snow...which is what they did in Poland during the holocust. Quite sad if that was the case. The song seems a lot deeper and can't see it dealing wiith cocaine.
On the album there are at least 2 other songs alluding to the early American West: "Deep in the Motherlode" and "Ballad of Big". With those songs in mind (my favorites) I always conjured up images of the doomed Donner party while listening to "Snowbound". Starvation and hypo-thermia can and do play tricks on the mind. The Motherlode (gold) country of Northern CA isn't far from Donner Pass. Whatever the true meaning, I still love this song after all these years.
I have loved this song for many years. I heard it the first time, when I was 17 y.o. When my mother died, I re-listened and the lyrics made some sense.
Winter has always been a mataphor of mortality. People and orders die, snowmen melt. There is a ring of beauty and acceptance to it. This whole game of existence is heading one way...
As we sleep, when we are awake, when we are young, adult, older, there is always a self-image of, what we are/ were. Everchanging thoughts and conditions play before our mind, until they fall down like snowflakes, forced to silence.
Maybe this so-called reality of fellow beings is more like snowmen, melting limb by limb, image by image, finally surrendering to the flowing in of the tide, experiencing a new kind of freedom from the changes of the world?
@michaelorc The fact that when you first heard this your mother died when you were 17, the lyrics made some sense. That is spiritual. Been a Genesis fan since the 70s. Mike Rutherford writes some beautiful stuff. Case in point: Mike and the Mechanics "In the Living Years".
@michaelorc The fact that when you first heard this your mother died when you were 17, the lyrics made some sense. That is spiritual. Been a Genesis fan since the 70s. Mike Rutherford writes some beautiful stuff. Case in point: Mike and the Mechanics "In the Living Years".
Here the explanation from Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins, taken from a Nicky Horne radio interview on BBC Radio 1 in 1978:
NH: Another track is called Snowbound…
MR: We tried to make this song a bit different, a verse/chorus romantic acoustic song and the drums were slowed down, if you listen, they have a funny sound. It was an easy one to record, a romantic song about a guy who gets inside a snowman outfit to hide from everybody, he was paranoid, and he gets stuck!
PC: We have never really, apart from perhaps this album, written love songs. We have always shunned away from them for some reason, a subconscious thing. It’s getting to the point now when most of the songs can be taken as love songs - Snowbound for instance is very romantic.
(https://www.twronline.net/issues/twr23/twr23_radio_interview_1978.htm)
[Edit: Typo fix.]
My friends say this song is about cocaine. I don't buy it.
It's about children and the magical feeling of a snowy winter! There are some strange lines, though... Beautiful song, anyway.
@Tschiggn It isn't. It's about children not realising they've found someone's frozen corpse.
@Tschiggn It isn't. It's about children not realising they've found someone's frozen corpse.
haha the drug reasoning is quite often quoted but its apparently a song about freezing to death. its almost hallucinogenically described thru the song so it could easily be about cocain... until u remember that the lyrics r by genesis. generally more into myth than missuse. still, ya never know. the freezing to death idea to me is so beautifully morbid that it adds something more to the song
This song is incredibly relaxing, damn Genesis is great.
I think this song has a similar meaning to Yes' South Side of the Sky.
@dzdarragh Wot, like feeling cold and shit? Spot on.
@dzdarragh Wot, like feeling cold and shit? Spot on.