So, is Counting Crows’ melancholy, much-beloved 1996 basic “A Lengthy December” a Christmas tune? The band’s frontman, Adam Duritz, has some ideas.
“There’s this large dialogue that runs round,” he says on the brand new episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. (To listen to the entire episode, press play above or hear on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.) “Is Die Arduous a Christmas film? It takes place throughout Christmas. And if it’s a Christmas film to you, then it’s a Christmas film. A buddy of mine insists that that Eyes Vast Shut is simply too, and I believe, no, it’s not! That’s not my Christmas feeling. There’s motion pictures which might be Christmas motion pictures and there are motion pictures that happen in late December. However ‘A Lengthy December,’ although, it matches in with my feeling of songs that conjure up and resonate with this specific time of 12 months. It’s cheery in a bittersweet approach, in a lot the identical approach that ‘Have Your self a Merry Little Christmas’ is — within the authentic lyrics, earlier than Sinatra modified them.”
If something, Duritz says, “A Lengthy December” is most akin to a different bittersweet, piano-powered unofficial Christmas tune, Joni Mitchell’s 1971 basic “River.” “I believe it’s similar to ‘A Lengthy December,” he says. “It’s about, like, ‘It’s onerous. Some of these items is difficult that I’m going by means of, and I want I had a river I might sail away on… There’s issue on this life, and I’m coping with it.’”
In a particular vacation episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, Duritz goes deeper than ever earlier than on the writing and recording of “A Lengthy December” (sure, there was a hospital in winter concerned, in addition to a spot known as Hillside Manor) whereas additionally revealing his favourite vacation songs (“I’m Jewish, however I really like Christmas”), providing new insights into the making of his band’s first albums, and explaining why, opposite to rumor, he (normally) doesn’t punish dangerous audiences by withholding “Mr. Jones.” (Critic Steven Hyden crystalized the “Lengthy December” holiday-song debate final 12 months.)
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