There were a lot of breakup songs in 1963, but you know what there also was a lot of?  Instrumentals.

That’s right.  Unlike today, where virtually nothing that doesn’t involve lyrics becomes a hit song, there were no less than eight instrumentals that made the year-end charts.  The majority of them related to surfing, which makes sense as 1963 was the year The Beach Boys really broke through after the initial success of “Surfin’ Safari” the previous year.  But not all instrumentals were focused on the Pacific Ocean. Rather, they covered a wide variety of settings and subgenres.

The biggest instrumental hit of the year, “Washington Square” by the Village Stompers, was a quirky song with a jaunty banjo leading the song.  On the other end of the city instrumental spectrum was the blues rock instrumental “Memphis” by Lonnie Mack.  Even flamenco guitarist Los Indios Tabajaras joined in with “Maria Elena.”  But sometimes, the best solution to an instrumental wasn’t to be quirky.  It was to create an atmosphere.  A happy, romantic… winter atmosphere.

“Our Winter Love” – Bill Pursell

#9 peak
#63 year-end

Bill Pursell was a composer and arranger from Oakland, who after studying at the Eastman Conservatory of Music in my native Rochester, ended up in Nashville as a session musician and member of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.  While collaborating with producer Bill Justis, the two found a demo called “Long Island Sound,” written by Johnny Cowell.  Upon first hearing the song, which was intended as a jaunty, trumpet-led instrumental, a staff member incorrectly played the 78 rpm record as a 45, creating a haunting piano melody at the beginning.  It was a happy accident that inspired the creation of one of the most beautiful songs to grace the pop charts at the beginning of the 1960s.

One thing I did like about several of the pop songs that hit it big in 1963 is that several of these songs just sound so happy and sweet.  And that is the appeal of “Our Winter Love.”  With the incorrect speed of the demo used as his basis, Pursell turned this upbeat trumpet ballad into a song that serves as the perfect apothesis of a winter landscape.  His piano opens with the ghostly opening chords, before going into the main melody by alternating between twinkling high notes and sprawling low chords.  With its gorgeous piano melody, this song just instantly fulfills the vibe of a steady snowfall creating the atmosphere of a snowglobe.  And indeed, true to the title, it does sound romantic.  This is that song that plays when you kiss your lover in the winter snow, even if you don’t hear it.

Adding to the atmosphere are the variations added to the melody by Pursell and Justis.  Although an instrumental, “Our Winter Love” adds a chorus of female backup singers for the final verse.  For this song, it turned out to be the right decision, as they do sound angelic. It represents the song’s ascent into heaven: The strings pick up in intensity, and the heavenly choir represents the true apex of how glorious it can be, finding love in the most beautiful of seasons.

But probably the most notable instrument in the song other than Pursell’s piano is an unlikely source.  You know things are going well for your song when even the most baffling idea on paper works, and here, it’s the distorted bass played in the second verse as a countermelody.  Fed through a faulty channel, the bass immediately plays two startling and off-putting whole notes before playing call and response with the piano.  This logistically never should have happened because it immediately stands out as considerably inconsistent when stacked against the magical piano and the heavenly strings and choir, and yet it holds it all together.  I assume the bass here resembles icicles falling from your house, or snow falling from the trees.

Bill Pursell died in September 2020 at the age of 94, as one of the hundreds of millions claimed by COVID-19, with “Our Winter Love” standing as his only top ten song.  With his death in our recent rearview mirror, I can think of no greater eulogy than to revisit this, his greatest work.  So few songs can duplicate the atmosphere of the weather, but “Our Winter Love” does it effortlessly.  It’s a fantastic song and has become one of my favorite instrumentals.

UP NEXT: A song that received a recent resurgence thanks to Pixar appears at #7.

SOURCES

Antil, M.C. “Song Of The Day: Bill Pursell’s ‘Our Winter Love.’” Reflections At The Speed Of Thought 10 November 2010. Web. 5 June 2022 https://mcantil.com/song-of-the-day-bill-pursells-our-winter-love/.

Roberts, Sam. “William Pursell, Musician Of The Nashville sound, Dies at 94.” New York Times 22 September 2020. Web. 5 June 2022 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/obituaries/william-pursell-dead-coronavirus.html.

IMAGE SOURCES

Single cover from It Rains… You Get Wet

Image of winter love from Pinterest, initially posted on Tumblr by Stellarsky