INT

Spring is gentle and lovely.

And summer is good on the whole.

The autumn is mellow and golden

And winter is good for your soul.

So long as you don't get pneumonia

And someone pulls up in a hearse

Winter is not such a problem

You know that it could be worse.

You know that it could be worse.

You know that it could be worse.

Winter is not such a problem

You know that it could be worse.

Some people don't tolerate winter,

They can only be happy in heat.

The elderly and the tubercular

The delicate and the effete.

The whiners and the complainers

For whom nothing ever's okay

And that is the beauty of winter:

It drives all those people away.

It keeps all those people away.

It keeps all those people away.

And that is the beauty of winter.

It keeps all those people away.

So here's to our friends inMiami,

Gainesville, Tampa, St. Pete.

You have no idea what you are missing

The beauty of each St. Paul street.

The gentle shapes of the snowdrifts,

The glitter of ice in the trees

And the voices of good Christian people

Singing in sweet harmony.

Singing in sweet harmony (2)

The voices of good Christian people

Singing in sweet harmony.

I love to put on my parka

On a bitterly cold winter day,

The tree limbs stark and dramatic

The sky a gun-metal gray.

The wind picks up and the wind chill

Is minus (Good Lord) thirty-five

But the beauty of winter it shows you

It's so good just being alive

People who live through disaster

Feel vibrant, sometimes even thrilled

They find a sense of adventure

And an utter absence of guilt.

In summer we have the illusion

That life should be sweet, and no fuss

In winter we learn that the world it

Does not revolve around us.

I have good friends down in Tampa

And also in San Diego

Who are allergic to winter

And faint at a picture of snow.

They shiver if it's below sixty

In the tropical climate they hide

But we are northern people

And we're free to roam the world wide.

We can be happy in Key West

In Fairbanks, Alaska, or Nome

When you've been through a hard winter

All of the world is your home.