This song didn't do spectacular on the charts but it is a very memorable song. A rare song about December that has absolutly nothing to do with the holidays. Though this song sounds quite depressing I have always liked it a lot in a kind of uplifting way. Probably because that no matter how bad things are the lyrics offer a touch of hope by suggesting "maybe this [coming] year will be better than the last". Also it seemed we had a 15 year span where if there was a month in the title, it was a depressing song. This one, 'Wake me When September Ends" and "November Rain" to name a few. So what does this mean? Adam Duritz wrote the song and explained it completely on VH1 Storytellers. He said "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 6 or 7 times. It was take number 6. 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 5 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..." I don't really have much to add to that except this; anybody that has ever gone through a bad streak (and we all have) can take a lot from this song. Feel free to comment.
This song didn't do spectacular on the charts but it is a very memorable song. A rare song about December that has absolutly nothing to do with the holidays. Though this song sounds quite depressing I have always liked it a lot in a kind of uplifting way. Probably because that no matter how bad things are the lyrics offer a touch of hope by suggesting "maybe this [coming] year will be better than the last". Also it seemed we had a 15 year span where if there was a month in the title, it was a depressing song. This one, 'Wake me When September Ends" and "November Rain" to name a few. So what does this mean? Adam Duritz wrote the song and explained it completely on VH1 Storytellers. He said "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 6 or 7 times. It was take number 6. 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 5 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..." I don't really have much to add to that except this; anybody that has ever gone through a bad streak (and we all have) can take a lot from this song. Feel free to comment.
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