With temperatures in the high twenties, fourteen fearless musicians, Bill, Jack, Larry, Arlene, Vin, Charles, Jen, Ken, John, Dennis, Sarah, Suzala and WendySue assembled in an overheated library conference room to play songs about emotional coldness as well as the traditional cold of winter.

1. I'm Still Standing, Elton John, 1983 (Arlene)

2. Snowbird, Anne Murray, 1970 (Arlene)

An upbeat melody disguised a song of heartbreak. Here was America's introduction to this Canadian chanteuse. It turned out to be the surprise hit of the evening, especially when we played it a second time in an easier key for singing.

3. Baby It's Cold Outside, 1944 (Arlene)

Lots of people did duets of this song, but we couldn't quite pull it off.

4. She's So Cold, Rolling Stones, 1980 (Dan)

I picked this because it looked easy, with four chords repeating. But without the swagger and attitude of Mick Jagger and the fellas, it was merely repetitious and uninteresting. It didn't help that a lot of the lyrics were wrong (I didn't check thoroughly), and at one point the chords were mixed up. That's when we quit. Disappointing.

5. Easy to Be Hard, Three Dog Night, 1969 (Dan)

What a great group they were, with a dozen hits in their short career. This one was originally from the Broadway show Hair in 1967.

6. Hard-Hearted Hannah, 1924 (Charles)

We played along with the video since no one knew it. It was a fun number. The singer imitated trumpets and trombones and made other funny sounds with his voice. (I wrote in my notes, "Bill played an Eskimo through a funnel." I don't know what I could have meant by that.)

7. Cold As Ice, Foreigner, 1977 (Bill)

Foreigner was on the radio a lot in the late seventies with about ten hit records.

8. Winter Winds, Mumford and Sons, 2009 (Jen)

Very pretty song. Never heard of it. Easy to play. I thought these guys were Irish, for some reason. Nope. They're English.

9. Ice Cream Man, Van Halen, 1978 (Vin)

I vaguely remembered this, but it was easy and fun to play.

10. Goody Goody, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, 1957 (WendySue)

Written in 1936, it was done by Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby and others. I must have known it from 101.1, WCBS.

11. Some of These Days, Sophie Tucker, 1927 (WendySue)

Very tough. Only Bill and WendySue knew this.

12. Button Up Your Overcoat, Ruth Etting, 1928 (WendySue)

These next few songs we took from a session in August 2015, also about winter weather.

13. Cold Cold Heart, Hank Williams, 1951

All these Hank Williams songs are so simple. Very good.

14. California Dreamin', Mamas and Papas, 1966

15. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere, Bob Dylan, 1975

16. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Wham!, 1984

Here's a song which we could do at our next session (which I'll tell you about in a minute).

17. Two of Us, Beatles, 1970 (Suzala)

18. Carolina in the Morning, 1922 (Suzala)

I don't know if there is an entire song parody of this, but lyrics I heard as a boy, watching the Mets on channel 9 were, "Nothing could be finer than to listen to Ralph Kiner in the morning."

The theme for next time is a tribute to those famous people who died in 2016. There were a lot of them. There were people from the Eagles, Earth Wind and Fire, the Jefferson Airplane and Emerson Lake and Palmer who passed away last year. We also lost Prince, Bowie and Leonard Cohen. You could sneak in other celebrities not in the music business. For Castro we could play Guantanamera. For John Glenn we could do Rocket Man. What could we do for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Patty Duke, Janet Reno, The Green Hornet, Abe Vigoda, Lois Lane, Morley Safer or Boutros Boutros-Ghali?

-- Dan.