![\"Countng](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Counting_Crows_at_Uptown_Amphitheatre_at_Music_Factory_Charlotte_NC_2015-08-10_A-678x381.jpg\" "\\"Counting_Crows_at_Uptown_Amphitheatre_at_Music_Factory,_Charlotte,_NC,_2015-08-10_A\\"")
Photo by Alexander Cason<\/p>\nPhoto by Alexander Cason<\/p>\n
From the fan favourite album Recovering the Satellites, this song was highly rated across the board, clearly striking a chord with writers (5 of whom voted for it), as its themes of regret and heartbreak melded with a sad optimism for the future; it resonated not only at its time of release but also towards the end of the COVID pandemic, when writer Adam Duritz performed a live version of the song on The Jimmy Kimmel show at the end in late 2021, and resonates still today at the end of\/during a difficult period for many. Duritz wrote it after visiting a friend who had just survived a car accident. As Duritz explained,\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0a song about looking back on your life and seeing changes happening,\u201d he said, \u201cand for once, me, looking forward and thinking, \u2018Ya know, things are gonna change for the better’\u201d Other writers interpreted it as a holiday song, noting a change in Duritz\u2019s demeanour. Yasi Salek of Bansplain said, \u201cThe thing about A Long December is that it is absolutely a fucking holiday song. People who say it\u2019s not are lying. The thing is, though, it\u2019s the inverse of a normal holiday song, in which usually the music is often cheery and joyful, but the actual song makes you feel very depressed. However, with this song, the music is bittersweet and sad, but the message is one of hope. It has been a long December, and there is a reason to believe that maybe this year will be better than the last\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Peter Thompson rated it his No 1 Counting Crows song in an Essentials piece in the middle of last year: \u201cThis amazing ballad, usually performed with Duritz on piano and regular keyboard player Charlie Gillingham on the accordion, is a mainstay of the band\u2019s live performances. One suspects that Duritz feels it is one of his most personal and, at the same time, uplifting songs. Whatever the interpretation, it is a brilliant song\u201d<\/p>\n
And Helen Jones\u2019 article for this Feature bears repeating in full: \u201cI knew that was the best thing I\u2019d ever written when I wrote it\u201d, Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz admitted of A Long December and while this hubris might seem unfounded in some artists, when you\u2019re talking about a song with a verse like \u201cThe smell of hospitals in winter \/ And the feeling that it\u2019s 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\u201d, it feels entirely justified. Duritz also said recently that he \u201cknew it was a perfect song\u201d and that he \u201cknew [he] was going to love playing it forever\u201d,\u00a0which is great news for us all.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Alexander Cason From the fan favourite album Recovering the Satellites, this song was highly rated across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-573538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}