counting crows

I talked about the album August and Everything After yesterday. The next album, Recovering the Satellites is another gem, equal in emotional impact but showing a band that can rock as well as quietly emote. The song  “A Long December” is probably second only to “Miami” on my list of favorites.

A long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last

Those lines alone are often quoted as a hand reaching out to hope after a bum year. I understand a month that seems longer than the others in the context of depression. In those winter months I used to struggle to keep my chin up, sometimes spending days in a numbness that wasn’t pain but rather the absence of any feeling at all. In these periods time was an enemy, unwinding itself slowly, taunting me with its ability to control the speed at which it unraveled.

And all I wanted to do was sleep. At least then the absence of feeling included the absence of conscious unfeeling. Confusing? Yeah, it was for me too.

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters but no pearls
And all at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl

A lot of oysters but no pearls. Brilliant. And then as quickly as the depression came it was gone again…

I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower
Makes you talk a little lower
About the things you could not show her
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 myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

Have a listen:

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Almost every fall and winter at the low point of that seasonal funk I considered medication. And then I reminded myself of the songs and stories I’d written in those same months and I figured I could make it without medication and with some prayer and maybe have a few songs to show for it in the spring. And I always did.

It’s been over 15 years now that I’ve been a fan of the Crows. “Mr. Jones” was their breakthrough single in 1994 and I did like it but there were other bands making similar roots rock noise then so it didn’t stand out as much as it would today. And although hearing the song “Round Here” on the radio piqued my interest, it was staying up late to watch them perform it on Letterman one night that won me for good.

I don’t remember exactly what the deal was with Madonna that night. I guess Letterman had taken a few cheap shots at her on the show and now that she was actually on the show as a guest she was determined to make Dave uncomfortable, so I remember she just wouldn’t leave. She stayed on past her slot, and then I think she sat in on every guest after that.

As the show wore on and it came to the time when it usually ends, I wondered if the Crows were even going to get their chance to play. It was a work night and getting close to 1 am and I was starting to think about sleep.

When they finally came on and started “Round Here” I was completely transfixed. I knew that I was discovering something and that this “something” was in stark contrast to the phony, do-whatever-is-controversial commercialism of Madonna.

There couldn’t have been more contradictory guests that night: Madonna, the musician who didn’t sing and Adam Duritz, the artist who didn’t talk. She was talking about herself; he was talking about all of us. She was bathing in her narcissism; he was drowning in the universality of despair.

So here it is – the performance that made me a fan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIyRDT_Ik34

Anne Marie and I have listened to the entire album August and Everything After hundreds of times by now. I’ve probably listened to it another hundred times myself.

I love the fact that this popular music addressed both depression and mental illness. That’s one of the things that has always drawn me to the band. It’s not always pretty and there are few fairy tale endings, but the characters that Adam Duritz paints in his songs are authentic, street-level portraits.

A History of Emotion: Personal reflections on the words and music of Counting Crows

Part 2: Mr. Jones and Me

It’s been over a decade* now that I have been a fan of the Crows. “Mr. Jones” was their breakthrough single in 1994 and I did like it then but there were other bands making similar roots rock noise (Gin Blossoms, Soul Asylum, Toad the Wet Sproket, Better Than Ezra) so it didn’t stand out as much as it would in today’s scene. And although hearing the song “Round Here” on the radio peaked my interest, it was staying up late to watch them perform it on Letterman that won me for good.

I don’t remember exactly what the deal was with Madonna that night. I guess Letterman had taken a few cheap shots at her on the show and now that she was actually on the show as a guest she was determined to make Dave uncomfortable, so I remember she just wouldn’t leave. She stayed on past her slot, and then I think she sat in on every guest after that. (Here’s the Wikipedia rundown if you care)

As the show wore on and came to the time when it usually ends, I wondered if the Crows were even going to get that chance to play. It was a work night and getting close to 1 am and I was starting to think about sleep.

When they finally came on and started “Round Here” I was completely transfixed. I knew that I was discovering something and that this “something” was in stark contrast to the phony, do-whatever-is-controversial commercialism of Madonna. (see it on YouTube if you have nothing else to do… unfortunately the Crows performance has been chopped from the end)

There couldn’t have been more contradictory guests that night: Madonna, the musician who didn’t sing and Adam Duritz, the artist who didn’t talk. She was talking about herself; he was talking about all of us. She was bathing in her narcissism; he was drowning in the universality of despair.

There are two more versions of “Round Here” on the double live album “Across a Wire” and what is amazing to me is that the three versions, one studio and two live, all hold up against the others and I can enjoy all of them repeatedly. The acoustic live version is guitar and vocal only; the studio version is a good mix of quiet and loud; the electric live version oscillates but ends an all-out rocker and mixes in portions of “Have You Seen Me Lately” to great thematic effect.

In this version, out of a low bass hum the familiar arpeggio emerges with just a hint of distortion. By the time we get to the first chorus the tone is set, ready to take off, but coming up to speed instead of just launching. “She has trouble acting normal… well, I have trouble acting normal around here…”

The live electric version lasts 10 minutes and not a moment is boring to me. How good does a song have to be to exist in numerous versions, all by the same artist, and sound great all three ways?

On the acoustic live album the rendition of “Mr. Jones” is worth mentioning. Again Duritz mixes in lyrics from another song. This time it’s the opening lines of the Byrds “So you wanna be a rock and roll star” :

So you wanna be a rock and roll star,
Well listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
And take some time and learn how to play

It’s a seamless insertion that is thematically consistent. Adam struggles a lot with identity, or at least did at the time of these recordings. And not to be one of those morons I will castigate later in this piece but where Adam changes the lyrics a bit and says: “Well man when everybody loves you, That’s just about as f—– up as you can be”, you know it’s the pain of the last few years of unbearable attention speaking.

We all wanna be big, big, big , big, big stars…
Yeah, but then we get second thoughts about that
So believe in me? Man, I don’t believe in anything
And I don’t wanna be someone to believe-
You should not believe in me

I wanna be Bob Dylan
Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky
Well man when everybody loves you
That’s just about as f—– up as you can be

A friend of mine, in a time of great personal turbulence and wanting to explain herself both clearly and quickly, once told a pastor friend of hers that she felt “So f—– up sometimes”… He really missed the point and chastised her for using such language. That really didn’t help the way she felt. It was more of a confirmation that she wasn’t the only one who thought she was a mess.

Well can’t you hear me cause I’m screamin’
And I did not go outside yesterday
Don’t wake me, cause I was dreamin’
And I might just stay inside again today

Anyway… on Letterman they tore it up. The beauty of a live performance is that it’s unscripted. A studio recording on a CD will be the same every time you listen; what struck me as important about this performance was that while the CD version was great this live version was tweaked a bit and even more passionate.

I was in another world by the end and I’ve never looked back.

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(Studio Version)

* Thanks to Wikipedia I now know that I became a fan of the Crows on March 31, 1994. I am trying to track down a recording of that performance on Letterman and I’ll post it when I do. If any of you know where to find it please let me know

Next Up: Part 3 – Keeping Myself Away… From Me

Michael Krahn
www.michaelkrahn.com