Winter Fields

Song story & origins

Introduction

Winter Fields was written in 1990–91 when we were living in York, Nebraska. I was teaching high-school English, speech, and theatre in nearby Milford, commuting the long, quiet stretch of I-80 across winter cornfields. I was also driving east to Lincoln for graduate work at the University of Nebraska, reading Great Plains literature—including homesteaders’ journals where silence, wind, and solitude loom like characters. Those miles—white fields, the hiss of wind, big sky—are where this song took shape. Years later I recorded two very different versions: on Grace (2002) and on Nebraska Catfish (2012). I also performed it on White Wall Sessions (season 2) out of Sioux Falls.

Where the song came from

I’m an introvert, so silence is often a friend; but on the Plains, silence can grow so large it edges toward an enemy. That tension is the song’s center. In those journals I studied—voices of people who settled the Plains—you hear how the wind and the wide open can unmake a person as easily as they make one. I was living it in miniature on those drives: the shock of distance, the way a horizon can feel empty to city eyes but full to those who’ve learned to read it. The first verse is that landscape; the second imagines a couple weathering it; the third wonders whether our children—upstairs and dreaming—have any sense of how hard it is to break ground in a new life.

The “break the ground” image reaches back to the sodbusters—turning virgin prairie under, with consequences we now understand (the Dust Bowl among them). Indigenous voices had already warned against turning the earth upside down. I borrowed that history as a metaphor for marriage and work: some ground shouldn’t be flipped in haste; and even when breaking ground is necessary, it’s hard. The song asks whether we can keep our voice—make a sound—while we’re doing that work.

What the song is saying

Silence in a relationship can be companionable—two people comfortable enough to sit without words. But long silence can also breed questions: Are we okay? When do we speak? How do we start? The untranslatable “hey-hey” refrain is intentional—wordless sound inside a song about struggling to speak. It’s a hand lifted from the chair, a little call across the quiet: I’m still here.

Music and arrangement

Grace (2002). A loud, driving treatment that plays against the lyric’s quiet—acoustic guitars, mandolin, a touch of slide, and Sheryl stacking vocal harmonies. She also sang this version live around Spearfish with friends on harmonies. The irony—a big, pounding song about silence—pleased me; I like a track to push the theme it carries.

Nebraska Catfish (2012). Part of an album revisiting my hometown (York) and growing-up years, the record leans more jazz/pop than my norm—piano forward, some funky wah-wah electric, and generally less acoustic guitar. Winter Fields wears that palette: a slower, more atmospheric version that lets the wind and room tone into the spaces. I later played it on White Wall Sessions (season 2).

A small arranging note: those high-register piano tinkles were meant to sparkle like snow—both the flakes drifting down and the bright crust that glitters on the fields when the sun returns. That sound sits under the last mantra—nothing but the wind—to keep the image in the air.

Silence, solitude, and the Plains

People who visit from crowded places often ask how you bear the emptiness out here. For me—and for many raised on the Plains—the sky is half the world; the sun, stars, and moon do real spiritual work. But we shouldn’t romanticize solitude. Plenty of settlers lost their minds to isolation. The song tries to honor both truths: solitude’s mercy and its cost.

The moment I recorded this reflection

When I told this song’s story, we were at the start of COVID-19 “social distancing.” I named the responsibility of limiting contact and the equal human need to stay connected—gratefully aware of how ready we were (streaming, digital music/video, social media) compared to earlier eras. It felt right to hold Winter Fields up as a companion for that season: a song about aloneness that still reaches for voice and touch, even if the touch is just sound in a shared room.

Why it stays with me

Because it keeps asking the right questions: What is my voice? How do I keep it while I do the slow work of “breaking ground”? How do we stay human—together—when the world goes quiet? Some nights the only answer I’ve got is that small, persistent call: hey-hey… and then the wind.

Source: New Music Memoir (1).docx