Songs of the Season 2025 – “A Long December” – Counting Crows

Forgive me for disappearing for a bit there! I’ve been sick the past few days (my youngest and I came into Christmas with fevers in the 102F range), and I feel like I’m just starting to catch up. I hope you all had wonderful Christmases.

This is really not a Christmas song in any way, shape, or form; but as we’re coming to the end of the year, I’ve always liked the way it kind of captures the weariness of the old year, but through it all, the idea that it’s not going to stay that way.

This song got a lot of radio play my freshman year of college. It was the first time that I was actually listening to current stuff, in no small part due to the fact that my dorm room was across from the bathroom, and there was a radio in the bathroom that was on all the time playing KCLD. (Seriously, the thing was on from 6am to 10pm *at least*. And, you know what, it wasn’t all that bad – there was a lot of interesting music on the radio at that moment in time.)

The thing about it, too, was that it seemed to express feelings I had about a situation that was going on in my own life; but that despite all the really heavy stuff going on, how much had been lost, how much there was no road back, there was still realistic hope in the midst of it. It was definitely a sentiment my 17-year-old self needed to hear.

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