The top 10 winter songs by Toronto bands

Toronto bands know a thing or two about cold winters. So, it's fitting that, at some point, many of them have penned an ode to the frosty weather that envelopes our city for four months of the year. These songs won't necessarily warm your bones, but the sense of communal suffering might lift your heart.

Here are my picks for the top songs about winter from Toronto bands.

Glad To Be Alive - Blue Rodeo
Although the title sentiment of this love song might be the opposite of how most feel during Canadian winter, its mention of snow-covered fields, lit up towns and Christmas stars will make you want to suck it up and soak it in.

Come Winter - Drake
Throw back to 2008, when soft-spoken, newcomer Drizzy (equally as love-struck as present day Drizzy) gave a lesson on cold Canadian winter and how it leads to a lot of... closeness. He may not have been one of the biggest in the game yet, but the quick rhymes, deep beat and Eva Cassidy/Marlena Shaw samples were on point.

Coldest Days - Rural Alberta Advantage
You'd think the aforementioned rapper would have brought the tears here, but RRA takes the cake with this piano and guitar-plucked lookback. When achy-voiced Nils Edenloff remembers "I held you in the coldest days," it's highly recommended you're prepared with a tissue and strong dose of eggnog.

Snow Lion - Feist (with Readymade FC)
Off Feist's 2006 remixes album Open Season, this slinky spin could be equally perceived as sexy or eerie. Whatever it makes you feel, few things say winter-well-spent like cozying up to Leslie Feist's croon after a long, blustery day.

Hour North - Jadea Kelly
On this sweet song from Kelly's 2012 album Clover, she makes the best of winter by escaping (you guessed it) to an hour north of the city with her love, to a place where she'll stay warm by the porch light and take in "long winters, log fires and ice fishing."

Sailing - The Strumbellas
Two hot tips for feeling warm this season: 1) Triumphantly repeat, "I will wait by the fire" along with frontman Simon Ward, 2) watch the music video, in which the band trudges across snow-covered Northern Canada, from the comfort of your warm, dry home.


Light You Up - Forest City Lovers
This jaunty piano ditty paints a hopeful picture of coming back to life after a dark stretch, with lead singer Kat Burns cooing, "Toronto's grey and nestled in the winter and her idle hands."

Northern Air - Elliot Brood
If lyrics like, "Lay that cedar on / the water's deep and calm / as we travel on to that little pond" don't make you want to embrace Canadian winter and all of its beauty, the season might just be lost on you.

Ice Hotels - Dinosaur Bones
Although this slow-burner is a slightly darker cut with talk of love lost and frostbite, the glimmering guitar and Ben Fox's mellow vocals pair to make "Ice Hotels" one of the prettiest songs in Dinosaur Bones' catalogue.

Snowsuit Sound - Sloan
Over 20 years later, this mid-tempo tune from Toronto alt-rock vets Sloan is guaranteed to put a nostalgic hop in your step. Most importantly, they earn extra Canuck points for lyrically depicting the impossibility of feeling cool as a kid stuffed into a snowsuit, walking around making that "snowsuit sound."

What did I miss? Add your suggestions for winter songs from Toronto bands in the comments.

Photo by carlos buzz in the blogTO Flickr pool.

by Jess Huddleston via blogTO