Freeze Tag by Suzanne Vega

Ever heard a song that sounds like poety, until you look up the lyrics and they turn out to be prosaic? There are too many examples to mention

But I'd say Freeze Tag is something of an exception, as well as being a great song, at least to those of us who cling to the eighties as if the era was a long, lost religion. And during these long, listless and sweaty days it's pleasant to think of dark night and the sharp tang of snow under the brown trees.

Freeze Tag by Suzanne Vega


We go to the playground
In the wintertime
The sun is fading fast
Upon the slides into the past
Upon the swings of indecision
In the wintertime

In the dimming diamonds
Scattering in the park
In the tickling
And the trembling
Of freeze tag
In the dark

We play that we're actors
On a movie screen
I will be Dietrich
And you can be Dean

You stand
With your hand
In your pocket
And lean against the wall
You will be Bogart
And I will be
Bacall

And we can only say yes now
To the sky, to the street, to the night
Slow fade now to black
Play me one more game
Of chivalry
You and me
Do you see
where I've been hiding
In this hide-and-seek?

We go to the playground
In the wintertime
The sun is fading fast
Upon the slides into the past
Upon the swings of indecision
In the wintertime
Wintertime
Wintertime

We can only say yes now
To the sky, to the street, to the night
We can only say yes now
To the sky, to the street, to the night