Singer-songwriter Katherine Priddy, pictured, has released a new single, a winter-themed song written in collaboration with the poet laureate, Simon Armitage.

The link-up came after Armitage read out a poem on Guy Garvey’s BBC 6 Music show and challenged any artist listening to put music to it. He mentioned Radiohead and Katherine Priddy in particular and within 24 hours, Priddy had responded with a song using his poem for the lyrics.

Armitage wrote two poems especially for the project, which Priddy turned into songs and recorded with producer Rob Ellis. The first track, Close Season, is out now. The second, Daybreaker, will follow in 2025.

Simon Armitage said: “I was once DJing in a treehouse in a wood and I saw Katherine dancing among the trees, so I knew we had some musical reference points in common. This kind of collaboration is all about trust and a belief in each other’s work.

‘Close Season’ is the personification of winter as a cold and insensitive man, someone who takes as he pleases and leaves snowflake fingerprints on everything he touches. Winter can be baffling and unresponsive, but it doesn’t mean that we are numb to its presence and its consequences. Frost can burn.

‘Daybreaker’ is the thaw after the freeze, the light at the end of winter’s tunnel, that day when it feels like sunlight is in the blood. Katherine has found those moments in the lyric when the warmth of dawn suddenly floods in. The speaker in the song is ready to spread her wings and head towards brighter things. If ‘Close Season’ is a night song, this is a song for morning, a waking up, a throwing open of the curtains.”

Katherin Priddy said: “As someone who studied literature and has always drawn on poetry and books for my own songwriting, it is such a great joy to have worked with Simon on this project. It was an exciting and somewhat challenging process for me, as an artist who places a great deal of emphasis on my own lyrics. It felt odd and slightly nerve-wracking, placing such an important portion of these songs in the hands of someone else … but whose better than those of the poet laureate.”

“I loved the idea of winter being personified as a cold lover, who drifts in and out, beautiful but hard, delicate but spiteful, irresistible but dangerous. It feels suitably different to a lot of the happy Christmas numbers that always paint the winter as something magical and cosy. In contrast, ‘Daybreaker’ felt hopeful and quietly joyful. It reminded me of the feeling you get towards the end of winter, the first day you notice the air has lost its sting, and you see the first tentative buds appearing on the branches.”

PHOTOGRAPH: SAM WOOD