Photos of Famous Musicians Playing in the Snow

If that was winter, we guess it’s pretty much over, which is depressing news for those of us who actually enjoy the snow (and for anyone worried about, y’know, global warming and the future of the planet.) We’re already looking wistfully back at the photos we published a couple of weeks back of famous authors playing in the snow, and we thought we’d follow up today with similar images of musicians. These were somewhat more difficult to track down — a legacy, perhaps, of the fact that musicians as a whole aren’t exactly noted for being outdoor types — but still, there’s plenty of snow-related musical imagery to be found if you look hard enough. So click through and try to ignore the fact that if these crazy warm summers are anything to go by, these sorts of pictures are probably gonna be the only way to see snow in a few years’ time. Huzzah.

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The Beatles

If there’s any one band associated with an image of romping in the snow, it’s The Beatles circa Help! Apparently they had a blast making the film, something that certainly comes across in this image: “All the snow scenes,” explained Paul McCartney, “were ‘cos the lads wanted a holiday. They were fed up working.”

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David Bowie

Look, we can’t say 100% for certain that’s Bowie — but it does look like him, and the Tumblr where we found the pic seems fairly adamant. And either way, we’d very much like to believe that David Bowie really would casually puff on a cigarette while whistling down the slopes at Chamonix. He is, after all, not like the rest of us.

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Bob Marley

Where’s the snow, you ask? It’s on the other side of the camera… As narrated by photographer Dennis Morris here, this image captures Bob Marley seeing snow for the very first time. It’s a rather lovely image, and pretty much also captures how your antipodean correspondent feels every time the snow falls during an NYC winter.

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Sigur Rós

At the other end of the “reactions to snow” spectrum: we’re not entirely sure that this falls within the remit of “playing in the snow,” but we guess that if you’re from Iceland you end up suffering snow fatigue after a while. (Poor Jónsi looks particularly troubled over the whole thing.)

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50 Cent

Why, yes, good people of Farmington, Connecticut, neighborly type 50 Cent will totally shovel your driveway. For $100.

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The Kinks

This is notable for being a record of one of the very first music videos ever made. It dates right back to 1964, and in a signature example of the Kinks’ wry sense of humor, the video in question was for… “Sunny Afternoon.”

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Miike Snow

Of course.

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Bon Iver

Behold: this is what a month of surviving on tinned organic artisanal beans and trapping grizzly bears with a lasso wrought from the fibers of his beard can do to a man.

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The White Stripes

Yes, that really is Jack and Meg — they’re on an arctic tundra called Iqaluit in the north of Canada, where they shot the video for “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You’re Told).” It’s only a screencap, but there’s something rather lovely about this shot, we think, the duo in near-silhouette, obviously enjoying one another’s company in a stark, empty landscape.