Maybe this year will be better than the last... [008]

Stuck in my head: "A Long December"
Counting Crows
Recovering the Satellites

~^v*v^~
Per Songfacts.com:

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 which is Hillside Manor, that's what we call it anyway, it's just a little 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."

~^v*v^~

I held my nephew for the first time.

I saw my niece recognize me in a photo, and say, "Untish" ("Uncle Chris").

I breathed in the heat again.

I saw SRV for the first time in many years.

Sara. Andrea. Shanna. All of you seeing me on short notice...

Westbound I-10.

Exit 0.

The fire in the Arizona sky.

The rain in the Sonoran Desert.

City of Angels.

Coming down from one more day up in the canyon.

Retracing my steps.

A wonderful breakfast at the Tower Café.

Finishing my first year... and now almost my second.

Gaining seniority.

The view from the plane at night.

Baby boy can't sleep without the stuffie I got him - Untish doing something right.

Summer in November... and my boy's first-ever flight.

Saying good-bye again.

Saying hello again.

Trying to finally pick up guitar again.

New friends.

Friends and friends and friends and friends ... and the champion reclaiming her title of "The Long Lost Love of My Life" (this means you, "E"... there should be a special championship belt or something).

Go call your old friends.

Cowboy boots that fit.

A piece of my dad parked in the driveway...

I still love rock and roll.

I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass...

May your new year be better than your last.
-CST.