A Personal Experience
My name's Jason, and I'm a student at UC Berkeley, coincidentally
located near the hometown of the members of my favorite band, Counting
Crows. I currently reside at UCB's Foothill dorm, on Hearst & La Loma
in Berkeley. Two blocks north of me is the very interesting corner of
Virginia & La Loma, by my guess the location mentioned in "Anna Begins",
where Adam Duritz says "Down on Virginia & La Loma, where I've got
friends who care for me". In the past I've spent many nights on long
walks, with my discman in hand, listening to "August and Everything
After", sitting on the steps that grace the very corner referenced in
the song. What the reference meant, I've never quite figured out. But
for anyone who has ever walked these streets, they are as
thought-provoking as any I've ever seen: narrow, steep, dark,
dead-ending, with beautiful houses nestled quietly in the North Berkeley
Hills, no two looking exactly alike.
Perhaps it has been walking these streets that have helped me to
clarify the nature of "August & Everything After", and what it has meant
for me in the three years I've listened to it. I know that the lyrics
in these songs aren't mine, and that they aren't directed at me either,
but I can't help feeling a sense of emotional association with nearly
every song. From frustration, sadness, bitterness, and pain, to
redemption, happiness, and acceptance of our lives, I feel deeply that
nothing else better states my own feelings and everything I've thought
during the past 5 years of my brief life. THIS, I think, is what makes
it the amazingly powerful album that it is; it touches something in
everyone, and it says at least one thing that everyone wants to say.
For me, it has been a comfort when I've felt I didn't want to move on
anymore, and I know it will continue to be in the future...
1/4/97