Counting Crows - A Long December

A Long December

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"A Long December"
Single by Counting Crows
from the album Recovering the Satellites
Released	December 1996
Format	CD single
Recorded	The Sound Factory, Hollywood, CA
Genre	Alternative rock
Length	4:57
Label	Geffen
Writer(s)	David Bryson, Adam Duritz, Charlie Gillingham, Matt Malley, Ben Mize, Dan Vickrey.
Producer(s)	Gil Norton
Counting Crows singles chronology
"Angels of the Silences" (1996) "A Long December" (1996) "Daylight Fading" (1997)

"A Long December" is a song by American alternative rock band Counting Crows. It is the second single and thirteenth track from their second album, Recovering The Satellites (1996). The song peaked at number five on the U.S. Hot Modern Rock Tracks and #1 on the Canadian Singles Chart.^[1]

Adam Duritz said about that song (from Storytellers): “In the middle of December of ‘95 my friend Jennifer got run over by a car, and just creamed; and I spent that whole month, while we were just beginning the record and most of Jan & Feb in the hospital, each like, 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 ya know, 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, and especially when you’re first starting out. And like I said, 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 which is Hillside Manor; and uh.. That’s what we call it anyway, it’s just a little house and I sat there talking with them, I woke ‘em up, got ‘em out of bed and made ‘em talk to me for a couple hours, then I went home to my house. “And 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 … and taught it to them after dinner. And we played it about 6 or 7 times ..and .. do you remember which take number it was? Take number 6. We just stopped, that was it. We recorded the song, it was done. We all went in to the kitchen and had a cold beer, I grabbed Brad our engineer and ran back out about 5min later, had him play the tape three times, just recorded all the harmonies …and uh..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 uh… and so, like a lot of songs on the end of album it’s not about everything turning out great, but it at least is about hope…and the possibilities …”

The video for the song featured Courteney Cox, whom frontman Adam Duritz had dated.

Contents

  [show] 

Track listing[edit]

All songs written by Duritz, except where noted

CD 1

1. "A Long December" – 4:57
2. "Ghost Train" (Live) – 5:53
3. "Sullivan Street" (David Bryson and Duritz) (Live) – 5:29

CD 2

1. "A Long December" – 4:57
2. "A Murder of One" (Bryson, Duritz, and Matt Malley) (Live) – 14:57

Live tracks recorded at Elysée Montmartre, Paris, France on December 9, 1994

Charts[edit]

Chart (1996)	Peak position
Australia ARIA Singles Chart[2]	86
Canadian RPM Singles Chart	1[citation needed]
Canadian RPM Alternative 30	17[citation needed]
UK Singles Chart[3]	62
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Airplay	6[citation needed]
U.S. Billboard Top 40 Mainstream	7[citation needed]
U.S. Billboard Adult Top 40	6[citation needed]
U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks	5[citation needed]