Long December
And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass
A Long December by Adam Duritz
What’s better than a song that perfectly resonates with the way you feel? When one of your favorite songwriters takes his song and masterfully melds a cover of another great song into it.
Here’s Counting Crows covering “Live Forever” and then seamlessly transitioning into “A Long December”…
Live Forever / Long December (Video)
Tip: Plug in a pair of headphones to fully appreciate this one, otherwise you’ll miss the lows.
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I was somewhat familiar with the backstory to “A Long December”, but I didn’t know anything about the song “Live Forever”. Turns out there’s an interesting story there too…
“Noel Gallagher began working on “Live Forever” in 1991, while working for a building company in his hometown of Manchester. After his foot was crushed by a pipe in an accident, he was given a less-strenuous job working in the storeroom, allowing him more time to write songs. One night, he was listening to the Rolling Stones’ album Exile on Main St.; while playing one of his own chord progressions, Gallagher noted that it sounded good against one of the vocal melodies from the album: “It was the bit from “Shine a Light” that goes [sings], “May the good Lord shine a light on you””, Gallagher recalled. Gallagher incorporated the melody, changing the line to “Maybe I don’t really want to know”. For a period afterwards, that was the only part of the song Gallagher had completed.[3] …Noel Gallagher presented a fully composed “Live Forever” to the band for the first time in early 1993 during rehearsals.” (Wikipedia)
Silver linings, right?
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Here’s a good version of another one of my Counting Crows favorites…
Omaha (Video)
“If you’re right to the heart of matters
It’s the heart that matters more”
– Counting Crows, “Omaha“
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Robert Burns
On the 25th of January each year millions of Scots and people of Scottish descent get together across the world to celebrate the life and work of Robert Burns. – The Scotland Shop
“His poem (and song) “Auld Lang Syne” is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and “Scots Wha Hae” served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country.” (Wikipedia)
Fun facts…
There are 57 statues and busts dedicated to Robert Burns scattered across the globe.
When asked for the source of his greatest creative inspiration, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan selected Burns’s 1794 song “A Red, Red Rose” as the lyric that had the biggest effect on his life.[55] (Wikipedia)
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Deduction
One of the most important skills in life is to be able to look at the evidence before us and come to our own conclusions – to think for ourselves. Never in history have we had more information at our fingertips than we do now. And yet, its seems we are often too busy to “do the work”.
“We would all like to be and aspire for our children to be as analytical as Sherlock Holmes. We want (and want our children) to think “outside the box” as well as to think well overall, with such thinking based upon careful awareness and evidence. Getting there requires more than is often assumed. We need what is too often missing from our understanding, missing ingredients of a sort. As I often say (and as my masthead proclaims), information is cheap, meaning is expensive.” – Bob Seawright
Sherlock Deduction (Video)