My Gen X Playlist: A Long December – Counting Crows

This is the first time in a long time that I can say, “No, thanks. I’m good.” Maybe for the obvious reason of already being on a break. But this is a recent feeling for me and I’ll gladly savor it. How long has it been since I’ve felt this way? Decades, if I had to guess.

The other day I was catching up with a friend and former colleague. I was sitting outside and chatting and he stopped the conversation and asked, “What the hell is that noise in the background?” Birds were chirping in the tree overhead. I could hear his eye roll in the background. “What a tough life,” he said sarcastically. If one of my concerns of the day is being drowned out by chirping birds, I really need to count my blessings.

I started researching job opportunities this past weekend. I think I’ve healed from my burnout and am ready to jump back in. This break was just what the doctor ordered.

The Counting Crows released A Long December in 1996. It’s a song born out of stress and tragedy during the making of their album. Through it all, this song was created and helped Adam Duritz find hope.

During the taping of a VH1 Storytellers performance, lead singer Adam Duritz talked about the song: “In the middle of December of ’95 my friend Jennifer got run over by a car, just creamed. And I spent that whole month, while we were just beginning the record and most of January and February in the hospital. Each morning and early afternoon then I’d go to the studio, the house where we were recording, and we’d play all afternoon and all night.

It was a very weird time because there is a lot of stress, not that it’s a big deal being a second album, but any album. They’re just not that easy to make. It’s a very stressful process, especially when you’re first starting out. I spent a lot of time in the hospital which is pretty weird. But one day I just left the studio about 2 in the morning, and I went to my friend Samantha and Tracy’s house . . . and I sat there talking with them. I woke them up, got them out of bed and made them talk to me for a couple hours, then I went home to my house. I wrote this song between about 4 and 6 and then went to the hospital the next day, and came to the house and I played it for the guys before dinner and taught it to them after dinner.

We played it about six or seven times. It was take number six. We just stopped, that was it. We recorded the song, it was done. We all went into the kitchen and had a cold beer, I grabbed Brad our engineer and ran back out about five minutes later, had him play the tape three times, just recorded all the harmonies, and we’ve never touched it since, that was it. It’s a completely live song except for the harmonies.

It’s a song about looking back on your life and seeing changes happening, and for once for me, looking forward and thinking, ya know, things are gonna change for the better – ‘maybe this year will be better than the last.’ And so, like a lot of songs on the end of an album it’s not about everything turning out great, but it at least it is about hope… and the possibilities.”

– Songfacts

Hope is a powerful thing. And yes, there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last. That’s good enough for me.

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For a complete playlist, please click here.

For the Spotify playlist, please click here.

A long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leaving
Now the days go by so fast

And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think that I could be forgiven
I wish you would

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once, you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl

And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California
I think you should

Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after 2 AM
And talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower
Makes you talk a little lower
About the things you could not show her

And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
It's been so long since I've seen the ocean
I guess I should