Cold

It’s night in the big city

A man falls asleep far from home

The last piece of pie is gone

 

James Brown – Cold Sweat (in background over intro)

 

“This is Theme Time Radio Hour, and there’s a chill in the air. We’re cold as ice. We’re looking at cold cuts, cold feet, we’re giving you the cold shoulder but we’re not a cold fish. We’re out cold. We’re talking about cold snaps and we’re coming in from the cold.”

Singers and Songs

  • Tom Waits
    Cold Cold Ground
  • The Parliaments
    I Can Feel the Ice Melting
    “George Clinton back when he still wanted to be Curtis Mayfield, before he went off in outer space. I like the outer space stuff too, but Curtis Mayfield, come on!”
  • Roy Hogsed
    So Cold, So Dead, So Soon
    “He’s one of those guys that you don’t know where to put his records. Are they country boogie? Are they early rockabilly? Are they country and western? That’s why I file everything alphabetically. I don’t separate it by style. That’s why you find Thelonius Monk right next to the Monkees.”
  • The Charmer
    Stone Cold Man
    “In the interests of equal time we’ll let other people discuss politics and we’ll just stick with the music.”
  • Defrost Your Heart
  • Willie Walker
    Warm to Cool to Cold
  • Doc Watson & Clarence Ashley
    Chilly Winds (Lonesome Road Blues)
    “It was originally recorded back in the 20’s and many people recorded variations of it. Riley Puckett did it in 1924, Bill Monroe did a version of it. Woody Guthrie turned it around a little bit and got ‘Going Down the Road Feeling Bad.’”
  • Big Joe Turner
    The Chill Is On
  • Loretta Lynn
    When the Tingle Becomes a Chill
  • Lightnin’ Slim
    Winter Time Blues
     “Where do you even begin with a record like that, there’s so much right with it! First of all, nobody’s in any hurry, you could just about drive a truck between the beats. You got a girl named Priscilla, barely 16 years old. Lightnin’ Slim employs the Socratic Method, starts asking himself questions half way through the song. Just the perfect record. Nobody makes records like that any more.”
  • John Lennon
    Cold Turkey
  • Ray Charles & Betty Carter
    Baby, It’s Cold Outside
  • Porter Wagoner
    The Cold Hard Facts of Life
    “A great example of how you can tell a complete short story in a little over two minutes.”
  • T-Bone Walker
    Cold, Cold Feeling
    “Here’s the king of Texas blues guitar…got his nickname from his middle name which is Thibeaux. You won’t find that name on those little license plates that you can buy for your bicycle but I hear it was a pretty common name down in the Bayou.”

Other People and Players

The Places

Record Labels

  • Revilot Records
  • Checker
  • Goldwax
  • ExCello Records
  • Apple Records

Words That Mean Emotionally Cold

  • Cool
  • Dead
  • Emotionless
  • Frigid
  • Impersonal
  • Indifferent
  • Icy
  • Joyless
  • Lukewarm
  • Passionless
  • Reserved
  • Reticent
  • Stony
  • Unfeeling
  • Distant
  • Unmoved
  • Inhospitable

“This is Theme Time Radio Hour and we’re talking about cold. The chill. The cool chill crisp. The frosty frozen icebox. The intense nippy one dog night. The snappy snowy stinging wintery. The icy sleet, and the frosty glare. And I know what I’m talking about. I come from a very cold part of the country. The part of the country I come from is so cold that when you talk to somebody outside the words freeze in mid air and you have to bring em in and thaw em out by the fire so that people can hear what you’re saying. It’s so cold out there that the politicians have their hands in their own pockets.”