Snowblind
by Cold

Album: The Things We Can't Stop (2019)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Cold took a long time climbing the mountain, going through lots of trials and tribulations before finally landing a record deal and releasing their first album in 1997. Their third album, Year of the Spider, was released in 2003 and earned them lots of active rock airplay and a devoted fan base known as the Cold Army. But it was also a trying time for lead singer Scooter Ward, who was trying to hold his family together while battling his demons that stemmed from his drug habit. The band ended up on long hiatuses and was dormant for most of the '00s. When Ward regrouped Cold for the 2019 album The Things We Can't Stop, he pulled from his darkest hours on some of the tracks, including "Snowblind," where he revisits a time when he was near death.

    "Play the music loud, my life is almost gone," Ward sings, recalling a time when he had let his drug habit consume him. "'Snowblind' was the worst-case scenario," he told Songfacts. "I went back to when I was an addict... I always knew it was going to kill me one day. So, 'Snowblind' is about when addiction is overtaking you, and my funeral happening in my mind: I'm going to go back home one day, and the people are going to carry me away."

    "It was very important to me to go that dark," he added. "Because not everything has a happy ending. I was like, Do I want to do this on that song? Do I want to basically just end it? And I did. I'll go on all the way snow blinded. That's what it's about, and some people just can't get out of it, and I understand that. Sometimes it just takes that impact and going that dark for people to feel it and come out of that dark place."
  • This is far from the first song to make the analogy between cocaine addiction and a blizzard (snow = cocaine). Black Sabbath and Styx both have songs called "Snowblind" that cover the same material.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Jonathan Cain of Journey

Jonathan Cain of JourneySongwriter Interviews

Cain talks about the divine inspirations for "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Faithfully."

How "A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss" Became Rock's Top Proverb

How "A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss" Became Rock's Top ProverbSong Writing

How a country weeper and a blues number made "rolling stone" the most popular phrase in rock.

He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss): A History Of Abuse Pop

He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss): A History Of Abuse PopSong Writing

Songs that seem to glorify violence against women are often misinterpreted - but not always.

Graduation Songs

Graduation SongsFact or Fiction

Have you got the smarts to know which of these graduation song stories are real?

Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright IIISongwriter Interviews

"Dead Skunk" became a stinker for Loudon when he felt pressure to make another hit - his latest songs deal with mortality, his son Rufus, and picking up poop.

Dave Edmunds

Dave EdmundsSongwriter Interviews

A renowned guitarist and rock revivalist, Dave took "I Hear You Knocking" to the top of the UK charts and was the first to record Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk."