Released October 18, 1999 Recorded 1998 Length 4:16 | Format CD single Genre Alternative Rock Label Geffen | |
"Hanginaround" is a hit single by the American rock band Counting Crows. It is the first track on their third album This Desert Life (1999). The song managed to hit number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100, being their biggest hit on the chart to this date. It also reached number 17 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, being their last entry on the chart to date.
Contents
The chorus of the song was used as the main theme for the 2006 NBC sitcom Four Kings.
Track listing
- "Hanginaround" - 4:16
- "Baby I'm a Big Star Now" - 5:59
Background
As with on much of the This Desert Life album, Hanging around saw the band experimenting with different recording techniques - in this case, utilizing looping. The song consists of eight different piano loops arranged in various configurations in setup inspired by Brian Wilson's Smile project. According to Counting Crows fansite anna-begins.com, Duritz says: ""So I was sort of ... semi-celebratory about that but also [thinking] 'Where am I going?' It's about a wild time when I was growing' up. Living a bit of a wild life, celebrating that. It's also about being scared that you don't have a future, but I don't think that's a waste. In the end, the guy just decides to continue having fun and to worry about it later. " In an interview with Songfacts Adam Duritz summed up his thought process behind the lyrics by stating "The idea of a song created with loops made me think of being on a loop myself. I wrote that song about when I was younger and the latter years in Berkeley and how I loved it there, but I was kind of going nowhere"