SONG CHALLENGE WINNER!

The Song Challenge:   Giving Frosty The Cold Shoulder -- The snowman is sexist, out of date and should make way for snow-women, an academic claimed yesterday. Dr. Tricia Cusack, of Birmingham University, carried out a five-year study into the "cultural meanings" of snowmen. She believes that they are old-fashioned symbols of gender discrimination. She has called for snow-women to appear on Christmas cards and wrapping paper.  Writing in the cultural history periodical New Formations, Dr. Cusack described snowmen as the "rotund relics of Bacchanalia". They were gluttonous and indulgent, and symbolised the grotesque with their portly appearance and carrot noses.  However, she added: "I don't want to ban snowmen or anything, let's just be a bit more imaginative - why not have a snow-woman? We need to be alert to which particular images have got currency. Why is it always male, and why is it so popular at Christmas? At least the snowman has lost his pipe as society is less geared towards promoting smoking."


The Lady Snowman by McGrath of Harlow
(If any one wanted to sing this, The Cliffs of Doneen fits it well, though my tune's a bit different.)

McGrath's Comments:  "They were gluttonous and indulgent, and symbolised the grotesque with their portly appearance and carrot noses."  Actually it sounds a bit like me, though I jib somewhat at the epithet "grotesque". "A rotund relic of Bacchanalia. I like that."  And that's what Dr Cusack reckons the female snowman has got to be like as well, I take it. Seems reasonable to me. (There were female snowmen in the film version of Raymond Brigg's The Snowman, and very Bachanalian they looked too.)

She stood in the yard
at the back of our place,
with her hat on her head
and a smile on her face,
She had coals for her eyes,
and a spud for a nose,
And so homely and snug,
in her coat made of snow.
Oh lady stay with us
as long as you may,
with the snow blowing around,
and the children at play,
you are back here for Christmas,
but just for the day,
for the sun in the morning
will melt you away.

The first time we built her
I can hardly recall,
We dug in the snow,
and we built her so tall,
And when we were finished,
my Dad said, "You know,
I think we have made us
a lady of snow."
Oh lady stay with us
as long as you may,
with the snow blowing around,
and the children at play,
you are back here for Christmas,
but just for the day,
for the sun in the morning
will melt you away.

And the next day she melted,
she was gone clean away,
And my Ma said, don't worry,
she'll be back here someday,
And the very next Christmas,
well wouldn't you know,
she was back there once more,
standing there in the snow.
Oh lady stay with us
as long as you may,
with the snow blowing around,
and the children at play,
you are back here for Christmas,
but just for the day,
for the sun in the morning
will melt you away.

Well most years at Christmas,
there's no snow around,
And that means the lady
is not to be found,
But as the years pass,
and it's just now and then,
the snow comes at Christmas,
and she's there once again.
Oh lady stay with us
as long as you may,
with the snow blowing around,
and the children at play,
you are back here for Christmas,
but just for the day,
for the sun in the morning
will melt you away.

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