Friend and songwriter, Matt Wilson (a Minneapolis treasure) once wrote “the sun is coming to cold places.”

I love that phrase. It holds hope in a time of cold and desperation. It reassures. Perfectly suited to a kind man from the cold confines of the northern tier. But they can get you through a cold mid-western winter too.

In trying to bring musical and visual reference to Matt’s words I wrote “tenzing”.

In addition to the joy, hope and giving, there’s a lot of despair around the holidays. It’s the beginning of the winter solstice – an unsettling time for many. It’s also a time of great, and often self-induced, stress about the holidays. This one seems all the more desperate given all our current socio-political tumult. Oh, and let’s not forget the war; no, not the one in Iraq, but the one that’s supposedly being waged against Christmas (do we REALLY need people to invent another war around this time of year?).

The point of tenzing is not just to build a song around a guitar riff, but to bring Matt’s sense of hope to what is starting out to be a very cold and solemn winter; especially considering it’s still fall.

Anyway, without giving it all away. Just enjoy the music and images. It’s a gift, and remember the sun is coming to cold places.