1971 · Behind the Songs
A winter love song tucked inside a landmark album.
“Winterwood” is one of the quiet treasures of Don McLean’s second album, American Pie, released in 1971. The album was produced by Ed Freeman and recorded at The Record Plant in New York, and it reached number one on the Billboard 200 in early 1972 on the strength of its famous eight-and-a-half-minute title track. Tucked among the longer narratives sits “Winterwood,” a short, fingerpicked love song that shows the gentler side of McLean’s craft.
Where “American Pie” sprawls across rock history and “Vincent” paints a portrait in melody, “Winterwood” is intimate and direct — a singer, a guitar, and a winter landscape as the setting for a love song. The arrangement stays spare, letting McLean’s picking and his warm upper register carry the feeling. It was never released as a single, which is part of why it remains a discovery for listeners who play the whole record: a favorite kept alive by longtime fans rather than by radio.
The song also carries the marks of McLean’s apprenticeship. He came up through the Greenwich Village folk scene of the late 1960s, and his playing on tracks like this one reflects that schooling — precise, unhurried, and melodic, with the guitar doing as much storytelling as the voice. On an album famous for its big statements, “Winterwood” is a deliberately small one, and that is exactly its charm.