It's winter and it's cold in many parts of the country. If you live somewhere where it isn't cold, well, you're smarter than the rest of us. Because cold is not better than warm. If it were, we wouldn't be heating our houses. We'd be opening the windows and letting the cold in. But songwriting thrives on adversity. We sing about broken hearts. We sing about black lung. We sing the blues. And when someone sings because they're happy, we tell them to shut up!

Let's hear it for five songs about the cold! And I left out Foreigner's "Cold As Ice" on purpose. Because I can! Now that's power!

"It's Cold Outside"--The Choir: These guys understood how everything is noticeably worse when it's cold outside and while they never amassed the kind of success that have been accorded great visionaries from Wilhelm Reich to Dr. Phil, the Choir did manage to get this song on a number of influential compilation albums that have ensured that not everyone has forgotten them. Certainly not me.

"Cold"--The

Ah boy. This is the state with the Grand Canyon and that 100 degree weather that even people who like dry heat say gets a bit much. But everyone needs to retire somewhere and apparently this is a good place to catch the early bird specials. Besides, the terrain is spectacular. All they need is water and they've got something here. Judging by the songs I came up with, it's still not a state many people want to sing about for too long. Which makes me nervous, because I'm really getting to feeling like this whole state-by-state concept is going to fall apart on me when I arrive at Wisconsin. So, please, if you're in a band, start writing songs about New Hampshire and Wisconsin?  Please.

"By The Time I Get To Phoenix"--Glen Campbell: I know what you're thinking. Didn't Nick Cave cover this song? He sure did! So did Isaac Hayes and he took an hour to finish it, which is a bit like driving through the state. It takes awhile. But in three short Glen Campbell minutes, composer Jimmy Webb and

It's amazing to see these TV "writers" as striking workers. Writers, as anyone who writes can tell you, are not known for their social skills. Their inability to interact with other people is what makes them so "special" and prevents them from doing other things with their lives. To see this most disagreeable lot agree to get together and walk in a circle for hours at a time while holding up signs, well, the mathematical odds on that happening could've made you rich had you placed your bets in time.

So while we await to see if the puny and the powerless can crush the MAN--go Davey go!--we offer these five fine protest songs to sing at your next social gathering.

"There Is Power In A Union"--Billy Bragg: Billy Bragg wrote a ton of great heavy-handed political songs and here he covers the great Joe Hill who knew a thing or two about using the hammer when it came to making his points. A little personal advice: if you're making a Valentine's Day Mix CD this year, don't include this. There

Show business is a tough racket. It spits and chews out the weak at heart and hooks everybody else up on drink and drugs. Until they find Scientology and then they get really weird. But it is not up to me to judge, but to mock. As I sit here on my $49 throne, purchased at a random office supply store, I aspire to set the world on the path of the straight, the narrow and the righteous. I don't know what that actually means, but I lifted it from something I read in the subway once.

Snow is white. Cocaine is white. An observant social commentator made the link and henceforth Cocaine acquired the nickname "Snow." Notice actual "snow" has never been nicknamed "Cocaine." No one has ever told their little ones to go run out and play in the cocaine for awhile. They did, however, name an energy drink after it. So there are rules to these sorts of things, just not the kind you might think.

Here are five songs about that "other" kind of snow.

"Snowblind"--Black Sabbath: Ace Frehley also had a