The Greatness Scale for songs is very personal, I feel: it’s based on the impact a piece of music has on the listener and the emotions and memories it conjures up. For me, The Blizzard by Judy Collins ranks very high on that scale, around an A+, to put it in a teacher’s vocabulary. (Click here to hear it)
The first reason has to do with the singer herself. While for most of my life I put the great Joan Baez ahead of Judy Collins on my All-time Best list, I always recognized the two of them as the best of the best female soloists, and it was Joan whom I saw in concert – twice, and not Judy.
Judy Collins and I both spent much of our lives in Colorado: she grew up in Denver, and I lived some of my best years in nearby Boulder. In addition, I felt that Collins and I had a “Six degrees of separation” connection — my friend Verne recently told me about a remarkable experience of his youth. He said one night, as a Rocky Mountain National Park forest ranger, he lay in bed in his cabin at the base of Long’s Peak. There was a knocking on his door. He opened it, and there was a stranger -- young, and dreamy Judy Collins. She excused herself for the intrusion and explained that she had once shared the cabin with a past ranger. She was feeling nostalgia, had some sweet memories of the place, and wished to see it again. He invited her in to chat for a while.
That chat made me feel nostalgia too, for I had once climbed Long’s Peak in my youth. A few weeks later, with Christmas approaching, I decided to buy Verne a Judy Collins CD, so as to rekindle his own memories of a time gone by. The CD was The Essential Judy Collins. It has her big hits like Bring in the Clowns (written by Stephen Sondheim) and Both Sides Now (written by Joni Mitchell), but as I learned by listening to it, there was a song that pulled me to it like a strong magnet and was full of nuances and layers that brought tears of joy to my eyes: Blizzard, written by Collins, seemed likely to be about that man she once knew in the Long’s Peak cabin.
Colorado, Colorado, when the world leaves you shivering and the blizzard blows, when the snow flies and the night falls, there's a light in the window and a place called home at the end of the storm.
All my friends know that in 2007 a Colorado storm came within an inch of killing me, and that it was the beginning of some years of sailing in icy waters for me, which I have already told you about in my piece about my #10 favorite song, The Sea of Joy.
One night on the mountain I was headed for Estes. When the roads turned to ice and it started to snow, put on the chains in a whirl of white powder, half way up to Berthoud near a diner I know. And the light burned inside, shining down through the snowfall. God it was cold and the temperature droppin', Went in for coffee and shivered as I drank it, Warm in my hands in the steam as it rose.
Those who know Colorado know about its magic, cherish it for it being a wonderful backdrop for adventure, natural beauty, and companionship.
Sitting there at the counter was a dark headed stranger, me and the owner and him keepin’ warm, Nodded hello and I said it's a cold one — Looks like there might be a blizzard tonight. And "yes", said the owner. "There's a big storm on the mountain. Good thing we're open, we could be here for hours. There's nothing for miles and it's too late to get to Denver. Better not try for the summit tonight". And the snow fell. And the night passed. And I talked to the strangers while the blizzard blew.
The stranger said "Love it can cry you a river — Me, I'm a loner cause I can't take the heartache. And sometimes I'm a fighter when I get too much whiskey. Here have a little whiskey, pretend you don't give a damn. My cabin's up here on the side of the mountain. You can go up there and sleep through the blizzard".
If the stranger was indeed the then-forest ranger, the song took me back to the mid-1990’s when a hiking buddy and I tried to scale Long’s Peak. Before hitting the trail, we chatted with the ranger at the time in front of his cabin (maybe the same one in the song). What made that encounter remarkable was that the stranger ranger was a Muslim Bosnian refugee (Bosniak) who moved us to tears with his accounts of the genocide from which he had recently escaped. Those who know me know about my compassion for Muslim refugees to this day.
I put on my parka, said goodbye to the owner. Followed the stranger through the snow up the mountainside.Woke in the morning to the sun on the snow, My car was buried in six feet of snow drifts, They dug me out, just the owner and the stranger, Sent me on my way when the snowplow had been by And the roads were all clear and the sun on the mountains Sparkled like diamonds on the peak to peak highway - Then I knew that I would get over you, knew you could leave me, but you'd never break me.
Colorado, Colorado, When the world leaves you shivering and the blizzard blows, when the snow flies and the night falls, there's a light in the window and a place called home at the end of the storm.
I hope listening to The Blizzard helps my friend Verne understand why that famous singer knocked on his cabin door that night, and it helps me cherish those things in my life that I value: friendship, nature, hope when times are bad, and home. And that every storm has an end.
And, as this is part of a letter I’m writing to my grandsons’ grandchildren. Dear 2G-Grandchildren, I hope that it teaches you the importance of creating memories and having friends worth remembering later in life, and that reminiscing builds happiness and good health.
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