What do you think White Winter Hymnal means?

Fleet Foxes: White Winter Hymnal Meaning

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Album cover for White Winter Hymnal album cover

White Winter Hymnal Lyrics

I was following the,
I was following the,
I was following the,
I was following the,
I was following the,
I was following the,
I was following the,
I was following the,
I was following the pack,
All swallowed in their coats
With scarves of red...

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  1. anonymous
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     Nov 12th 2019 !⃝

    This might sound pretty dismal but please hear me out. I always thought this song was about people being hung. When they say "scarves of red tied round their throat" I think that means the rope digging into their flesh and then there is blood. "To keep their little heads from falling in the snow" could mean that the rope is the only thing suspending them above the snow. "Red like strawberries in the summertime" most likely refers to the blood in this interpretation.

  2. anonymous
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     Sep 8th 2019 !⃝

    I looked up this song because it was needling me to not know what the song meant. Robin Pecknold wrote it about an experience he had when he was a child. Apparently, he was "ditched" by his buddies in middle school and that's what the whole song is about.

    Having said that, it does, in my opinion, sound more like a song dedicated to a single group of people that all do something the same way and if someone steps out of that "norm," they'll be ostracized, marginalized, or otherwise looked down upon.

  3. anonymous
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     May 20th 2019 !⃝

    I thought of birds (as a low rated commenter said earlier) and kids. Then I had to read the lyrics to find out what they were.

    Then I thought of a girl with her boyfriend who fell and turned the snow red with the scarf.

    Then I discovered that they're meaningless. Also, read somewhere about the loss of innocence. Kids belonging to a click doing normalkid things then getting into drugs. Like all the ideas here.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  4. anonymous
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     Jan 2nd 2019 !⃝

    I agree with the French Revolution bit, but not the Michael part. Remember that Michael is an angel, and he was supposed to be a warrior of some sort. He was a saint to many (including many French) people, and in one battle he was defeated but resurrected by god. Apparently he “fell” to earth, as in “And Michael you would fall” as if he were to fall, or if people were to stop fighting, they, too, would fall.

  5. anonymous
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     Dec 18th 2018 !⃝

    It is a catchy song jndeed but it gives you a gut feeling that it is of a dark nature. I believe that it is talking about those that had to wear red scarves to stay alive. But being that it is Christmas....your heart wants the song to be cheerful so I like to think that it is about snowman.

  6. anonymous
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     Dec 11th 2018 !⃝

    I think it's about parents following their childen. Michael, the slow one, slipped on ice and the blood colored the snow red. When they say they wore the scarves to keep their heads from falling in the snow, they mean that as a metaphor. They're just saying that it was so cold, that if they took their scarves off, they're heads would freeze off.

  7. anonymous
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     Nov 25th 2018 !⃝

    The first thing I thought this meant was that some kids were walking home from school in winter so they had coats and scarves. A boy named Michael was walking towards the back and when one of the kids turned around they saw that Micheal fell and got scraped and the blood got on the snow.
    The snowman idea made sense too,and so does the one about the French Revolution.

  8. anonymous
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     Dec 28th 2017 !⃝

    You all have various well thought interpretations
    I thought they were singing about little birds,
    swallows, with red breasts, and could not figure
    out how that kept their heads from falling in the
    snow. Revolutionary scarves makes more sense to me.

  9. anonymous
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     Dec 25th 2017 !⃝

    Actually I was wrong. The word really is swallowed. My bad! Sorry guys

  10. anonymous
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     Dec 25th 2017 !⃝

    A) the word is "swaddled", not "swallowed".
    B) can people please stop acting all superior and saying basically "ugh please! You're obviously wrong, it means what I think it does.." When an author writes something, the reader (or listener)'s belief is just as important as the author's. The knowledge we bring with our interpretation can be just as valuable as the author's intended meaning. The days of the author having 100% of the information relevant to their piece are gone. After all, Fleet Foxes literally said "it's lyrically meaningless."

  11. anonymous
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     Dec 22nd 2017 !⃝

    I think it's about war, and the scarves of red represents the color of one side. During the war a young drummer boy (Michael) is shot, shown as the first blood causing the battle to begin and covering the snow in blood.

  12. anonymous
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     Dec 20th 2017 !⃝

    I always think of a father with his kids, and while he's following them, one of the kids (Michael) gets behind and falls gets a scratch, and the father tries to make Micheal feel better about it and says how the snow looks like strawberries in the summertime. And when he talks about the little scarves i always imagine the father putting it around his kids throats, to protect them from the cold. I think its about keeping your spirits up, even when something hurts you, and the song is really uplifting too. It's probably not what the writer thought about, but as someone said already the songwriter said its meaningless anyway...

  13. anonymous
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     Dec 19th 2017 !⃝

    The band states that this song is pretty lyrically meaningless, and that it's a favorite to perform due to how vague it is. It's not about death :P but this is how I think of it:

    I always think of a Shepard boy following herd of sheep - but maybe even wolves, since they say "pack" - They are wearing red scarves, maybe so he can see them better. He's following them to keep their heads from falling in the snow, but Michael, a sheep or wolf or whatever, is a sweet clumsy creature and he falls in the snow :) the snow is red because of the scarf. That's all :)

  14. anonymous
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     Dec 16th 2017 !⃝

    I think it's a dark Christmas memory someone had, by either a kid or parent, of a group of kids who were bundled up in coats with red scarves going out in the snow as friends,having fun, and when either a parent or a friend of Michael looked behind them, Michael was gone because he fell down a hill,"then I turned round and there you go, and Michael you would fall". And when they found him at the bottom, he was injured and bleeding out, then died, coloring the snow red with his blood.

  15. anonymous
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     Dec 16th 2017 !⃝

    I think it's a dark Christmas memory someone had, by either a kid or parent, of a group of kids who were bundled up in coats with red scarves going out in the snow as friends,having fun, and when either a parent or a friend of Michael looked behind them, Michael was gone because he fell down a hill,"then I turned round and there you go". And when they found him at the bottom, he was injured and bleeding out, then died, coloring the snow red with his blood.

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