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Songs for the Solstice

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Winter, by Albert Gumble. Illustration by Edgar Keeler.
Winter, lyrics by Alfred Bryan, music by Albert Gumble.

The winter solstice arrived at 5:47 pm Eastern Standard Time Greenwich Mean Time. As the East coast digs out from a major snowstorm,  let us bundle up by the fire and sing and dance to songs of winters past. From the Historic Sheet Music Collection, 1800-1922, come several indicators of the amorousness with which a previous generation met cold climes.  Jean Schwartz encourages the prospective beau that “If you think much of her, really love her, tell her on a winter’s night.”  The wonderfully named W.F. Sudds invites you to pass a “Winter’s Eve” with your choice of several dances that were all the rage at the end of the 19th century: a galop, a gavotte, a schottische, and a march. Finally, Alfred Bryan stresses that “Winter is freezing time, teasing time, and squeezing time.”  Stay warm, readers!

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