I feel the line serves to establish the role of love, romance, or beauty in life. Again, it’s a depressing setting – it’s a cold, long December; he’s in a hospital, with presumably lots of dying and sick persons around; every day and night feels like “just one more day / night”; and there’s the feeling that “it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls.”

Yet in the midst of all that darkness and depression, he manages to notice “the way that light attaches to a girl,” which is a beautiful, bright, cheerful image. That he notices her in that “crowded room” helps demonstrate the extent of her beauty; she stands out that much. So again, I think the point is that love, beauty, romance is possible, maybe even necessary, in a dark, dying, cold world.

Adam has stated (he actually shouts it during a live version) that this was “the best line he’s ever written”.

This line could be linked to the attraction we get to someone and how we see them in a brighter. (In my mind, he’s on a dancefloor when he wrote this line)

This line has NOTHING to do with Jennifer Anniston. “August and Everything After” was recorded February−June 1993. Duritz and Anniston dated for a period in 1995.

This may be a bit of a stretch but does this line give a nod to the Springsteen song “reason to believe”?

False. The lead singer of Counting Crows is actually a time traveler and he traveled back to 1996 to warn everybody about how awful 2020 is going to be.

My take – in the first line, he talks about a “long December,” a phrase indicating that the month has been dragging on (i.e. think of the phrase, “It’s been a long day.”) So he’s not happy. As later details indicate, he appears to have lost someone close to him (line 3 in this verse); the overall season makes him “laugh a little slower”; and he feels like he didn’t “hold on to these moments as they pass[ed].” Those details are likely the basis for the “long” adjective in front of December.

But in this unpleasant “long December,” he expresses hope that “this year will be better than the last.” My impression is that he feels this year will be better than the last more because the last year was so bad, not because the new year will be fun. Hence, the message is that, even in the most difficult of times, we should acknowledge the truth that things will always get better, that sadness, depression, and other pains never last permanently.

It’s obvious that winter is associated with heartbreak, depression, and other sad emotions. Hence, winter “makes you laugh a little slow,” or makes it harder to be happy. That part is clear enough.

I think this line (as well as the next 2 lines) are the topics that he discusses with his friend(s) at Hillside manor. So basically, he went to his friend’s place Hillside Manor at 2AM to talk about the year. This talk about the year involves talk about how winter is bringing him down (i.e. makes him “laugh a little slower); and about how he is feeling down (i.e. talking “a little lower”) about the way he didn’t get to show the girl so many things. So basically, he’s sad because of winter and because the girl in line 3 has left him.

True, the artist himself said the song was inspired by his friend who was run over by a car. But just looking at the song, without checking outside sources, the speaker is merely saying that someone left him, and he can’t remember the last thing the person said. The person who left, I think, serves a broader symbol of loss, not just the Jennifer who inspired the artist. He can’t remember the last thing the person said before the person left. Likely, he can’t remember because he couldn’t appreciate “these moments as they pass,” as he says later in the song.

Basically, someone he loves has left him; and he didn’t think to hold on to the person’s last words because he didn’t realize how important those last words would mean to him.

That the speaker would go to Hillside Manor at 2AM just to talk helps establish how much he is depressed or stressed out about his current feelings and the dismal year that just passed. He so badly needs to talk about the year that he drives to his friend’s house at 2AM, presumably waking him up. He really needed to talk, basically.

Adam says when preforming Ms. Ohio and long December that its really because 2:00 is when the bars close.

This is funny. But I relate.