Roses in the snow

We’re still digging out from the snowstorm that blew through Minnesota earlier this week. Now that it’s stopped snowing, the temperatures have dropped below zero. It looks like it will be a traditional Minnesota winter, the kind that brings to life the metaphor of “roses in the snow”: “Our love was like a burning ember/It warmed us as cold winds blow/We had sunshine in December/And threw our roses in the snow.”
If you’ve ever heard Emmylou Harris sing Ruth Franks’ “Roses in the Snow,” it’s a song that comes to mind when the snow is on the ground and the chill is in the wind. It was the title song of Emmylou’s 1980 rootsy bluegrass album, which is where the inspirational Norman Geras picks up his continuing review of her recordings: “Emmylou #4.” (Norm links to his earlier installments in the series in his current post.)

I first picked up Norm’s Emmylou thread in Nobember when he wrote a fine account of “Emmylou live in Manchester” (the link takes you to my post on Norm’s account). Norm has recently moved his site off Blogger to the more merciful Movable Type software, with an accompanying change in the URL address of his site. For the record, here’s the link to his new digs at Normblog.
Normblog is the handiwork of a reasonable Marxist, a British friend of America, a gentleman with a taste in music after my own heart, and a knowledgeable fan of Emmylou. If you haven’t previously checked out his site, now’s the time to do so.