Term Paper
The Counting Crows And The Impact Of Their Albums
Who are the Counting Crows? A question that some people ask me, when
I tell them that's my favorite band. I tell them that they are more
than my favorite band, they are my life. Most of the time I eat,
breathe and sleep their songs because I am so moved by their lyrics.
It's as if they're singing about my life. There are things in life
that are so precious and delicate. The Counting Crows albums are
those things. The name Counting Crows comes from an old English
divination rhyme that suggests that life is as pointless as counting
crows. The Counting Crows songs are about the struggles to find the
meaning of life, relationships that have gone bad, loneliness, and
the whole aspect of fame and fortune.
Adam Duritz, the lead singer, is the life and soul behind the
Counting Crows. Duritz, who has been compared to the likes of Bob
Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and definitely Van Morrison, grew up in
many different cities. He had a very loving family, yet Adam feels
his life is shaky, more the less non-existent without that special
someone in his life. "Life is a constant struggle to actually exist.
From the moment you're born, basically you're dying," says
Adam(Goldberg 2). So writing songs is his life, something he loves
and cherishes. He wants people to have his songs and listen to them
as a gift from him. "Writing a song is like a precious piece of art
to me," says Adam. "In order to play a song for me, I have to be
there. I have to live it at that moment," says Adam on how he creates
his songs(Graff 6). His songs are about who he is, "opposed to being
something I'm not or dreaming about who I am," says Adam .(Graff 4)
Some of the songs are about dealing with the pressures of selling
records and being that "Mr. Jones" in the rock n' roll business. The
Counting Crows debut album August and Everything After sold over 6
million albums and the band was labeled as "The Biggest New Band in
America" by the Rolling Stone magazine. The pressure of everyone
knowing who you are was mounting on the lead singer. "I couldn't go
out. I couldn't go to bars. Everybody had give their opinion of me.
It freaked me out," says Adam (Farley 76). Adam talks about the
pressures of fame a lot to his colleagues and he tells them, "I'm
happy with fame in a lot of ways. I won't deny that, but it's kind of
scary. Something has definitely changed in my life, and I can't go
back now if I wanted to" (Graff 2). Since the debut album some three
years ago the band just released a new album called Recovering the
Satellites, which is about "the uncertainty about the attempt to
recover yourself," says Adam (Goldberg 5). To recover the pieces of
your life is what Adam is saying. On a personal level the new album
is about what Adam has been through. It's about how you survive
becoming that 'Thing', an image broadcasted into 60 million MTV
homes, a voice heard on radio 'round the world. The Counting Crows,
the band and their songs are worth looking at because as Adam said,
"What makes it all about in a rock n' roll band is playing with other
people, and having a connection" (Goldberg 7), and their songs have
that connection, with themselves and life.
The Counting Crows consists of six band members from the San
Francisco area.
Adam Duritz is the lead singer and main songwriter. Dave Bryson is
the rhythm guitarist.
Matt Malley is the bassist. Dan Vickrey is the lead guitarist.
Charlie Gillingham is
the keyboardist and the drummer is Ben Mize. The founders of the
Counting Crows
were Adam Duritz and Dave Bryson.
These two guys met through mutual friends and started making tapes
together with some friends, that eventually also became members of
the Counting Crows. "We have just kind of known each other and they
were guys we always wanted to play with," says Adam Duritz on how the
band was formed. The Counting Crows had accumulated a long,
impressive demo tape by the winter of 1991. The tape consisted of
their hit song "Mr. Jones", "Round Here", "Perfect Blue Buildings",
and "Sullivan Street" to name a few. The tape eventually was played
all over the bay area thanks to Bonnie Simmons, a radio legend in the
area. The band was now ready for stardom as Gary Gersh, president of
Geffen Records, heard their demo from the band's music-business
lawyer at the time. "I rarely fall in love with something that much,"
says Gersh of the demo tape. By this time, the Counting Crows had
found managers Martin Kirkup and Steve Jensen to guide them through
the upcoming I-Beam showcase, a showcase for the local rookies. The
showcase turned out to be the turning point for the band as they
knocked the socks off all the record executives there, including Gary
Gersh. The day after the I-Beam showcase, nine labels called and
three contenders quickly emerged: Geffen, Elecktra and A & M.
The lead singer, Adam Duritz and the band chose to sign with Gary
Gersh of Geffen records. "I knew he would teach me how to be an
artist and he would teach us how to make records," says Adam of Gary
Gersh. Money was never the issue; creative control was. "He saved my
life and made this band. Not by creating us but by showing us how to
be ourselves, says Adam. Yet the band was not complete without a
producer. The radio legend, Bonnie Simmons sent a copy of the demo
tape to T Bone Burnett. "I've known T Bone Burnett for 20 years now
and I have never sent T Bone a tape before, but this was good," said
Simmons (qtd. in Selvin).
T Bone Burnett had worked with big stars such as Bob Dylan, Elvis
Costello and U2's Bono as a guitarist and songwriter. The Crows
quickly settled on Burnett and it was time to find a place to record
the album.
Adam Duritz met his longtime hero, Robbie Robertson for the first
time, in Los Angeles. Robbie was a member of "The Band", another rock
group. Robbie spoke to Adam and told the lead singer to record their
album in a house. So the band found a house in L.A. and began
recording their first album. T Bone Burnett talking about studios
said, "They reek of despair, it sinks into the walls." "The last
thing we wanted was to go into a studio. I wanted to go to live it.
To be stuck in there, trapped, where the whole world is making that
album," says Adam Duritz on recording their first album. The band
camped out in this house for two months and worked on the album.
Everyone was new at making an album so the task was harder than they
thought, but in the end it all paid off. A big break came while they
were recording the album. Robbie Robertson of "The Band" requested
that the Counting Crows play at the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame awards
dinner in 1993. Van Morrison could not make it, so Robbie requested
that the Counting Crows play "Caravan" by Van at this awards dinner.
It was an auspicious debut forever embedded in the legend of the
Counting Crows (Selvin 4).
The time came for the group to deliver the album to the radio
stations. The band insisted on no single, no focus track, just the
plain unvarnished album (Selvin 4). To this day Adam has requested no
singles be released because he doesn't want their songs to be like a
Macarena style song. It is over played till its death is what Adam
was concerned with. The band wants you to come to their concerts and
just listen to them on the radio or CD. "Go see a live show, that's
what it's really all about. I'm so gone up there. I just lose my head,
" says Adam about how he lives his songs on stage.
This once unknown band from the bay area was now having its music
played all over the country on just about every alternative music
radio station. "Mr. Jones" was the clear hit off the album, even
though Adam says his album "is natural" with no one clear hit because
every song is a hit(qtd. in Goldberg 3).
"I love my songs," Adam said, " I think they're incredible. They
mean everything to me. That they move other people makes sense to me,
they mean so much to me" (Qtd. in Selvin 4). The songs on the first
album "August and Everything After" are often about loneliness, a
sense of rootlessness and longing for meaning in life (Rubinstein 1).
Lost souls and lonely lovers populate Adam's songs as he explains,
"They just keep tripping over each other and hurting each other. But
because they want so much and see life as so full of possibilities,
they fall a lot further."(Qtd. in Entertainment Weekly 1). Adam
portrays this theme in his songs on the first album. The song "Round
Here" is about those life lessons that you're given when you're a
child. It's about what you should do to be a good adult and carve
out your name in society--all those clichés. He's an adult now and
has the rights to do the things that 10-year-olds aren't allowed to
do, but so what, it's nothing. Everything has such consequences for
him. He cant touch anything or anyone, and he's terrified. By the
end of the song, he's so completely lost; he's become more of a ghost
than a person, and he's taking other people down with him ("Duritz's
Song Meanings," 1994). With lyrics such as "Step out the front door
like a ghost into the fog /where no one notices the contrast of white
on white", "Round Here is a popular song with the band's fans.
The song "Omaha" talks about how circular life is, how it turns
people over the way the seasons turn over. Somehow life just
bulldozes people ("Duritz's Song Meanings," 1994). Life isn't as
gloomy in "Omaha" as it is in the song "Perfect Blue Buildings". The
verses are about how horrifyingly gray and mundane life in general
can be. Nothing catastrophic, little horrors, envy of other people,
deep need that is unsatisfied, and boredom ("Duritz's Song Meanings,"
1994). The chorus of the song goes, "Help me stay away, I'm falling
asleep in perfect blue buildings." The chorus is about how seductive
coma-visions are: these dreams of placidity, colors, shapes that are
so clean. But peace is a trap to the person in the song; he doesn't
want to fall prey to the visions ("Duritz's Song Meanings," 1994).
This is Adam's favorite song on the album and during one concert in
Paris, Adam clearly attributed this song to the late Curt Cobain.
Duritz told the crowd, "It's a hard world for some people to live in.
I hope this
erson I'm talking of finds peace"("Hey Mr. Jones!," 1994). Not all
the songs on their debut album are about the hardships of living life.
The delicate song "Anna Begins" is about denial; how far you'll go
to deny that something's really happening because it's too
complicated, too terrifying, too difficult. "The song is about me and
Anna, an Australian girlfriend whom I met on the Greek Island of
Corfu. The relationship was suppose to be light, but we got further
into it and it became harder and harder ("Duritz's Song Meanings,"
1994). "Raining in Baltimore" and "Sullivan Street" talk about
relationships that have gone bad because he put himself in that
situation. Either being 50 miles away from someone you miss, or
dating a catholic girl that had strict rules were talked about in
those songs. The last song on the album, "A Murder of One", I think
sums up the album and ends it with a big note.
Adam said in an interview, "I think August and Everything After came
to a place at the end of it where a guy says addressing a woman in an
abusive relationship 'Get out or your life will be a waste' ". He's
also addressing himself, how he abuses himself in life (Graff 3).
This song is about a friend of Adam who was in a relationship that
was really bad. She stayed because it was safe, because she felt
good there. But it was suffocating and degrading (Day 1). The end of
the song Adam says, "Change". The debut album of the Counting Crows
is about what the characters portray in their songs and what they
should do, "Change".
The long awaited "Recovering the Satellites" album is an attempt to
"Change".
The band is being overwhelmed by all the things that are happening.
This album is attempting to pick up the pieces of your life and move
on. And it's also about the attempt to throw yourself off the cliff.
The early portion of the album is about a great deal of turmoil
inside myself and with the media spotlight (Graff 3). The album's
first song "Catapult" starts off with "All of the sudden she
disappears/just yesterday she was here/somebody tell me if I am
sleeping/someone should be with me here (cause I don't wanna be
alone)." A theme that really didn't leave from the last album but the
songs progress into that "Change" of attitude. "Goodnight Elizabeth"
is a melancholy ballad about a woman Duritz dated who had trouble
dealing with his constant touring (Farley 77). Adam sings, "I hope
that everybody can find a little flame/Me, I say my prayers/then just
light myself on fire/ and I walk out on the wire once again." No
matter how many times you get hurt, or left, you just have to walk
out of there and try ag
in (Goldberg 1). "Have You Seen Me Lately" is about the uneasiness
romance with fame, sort of a self mocking look at the perils of
celebrity (Schwager 1). The beginning of the song talks about the
media spotlight, "Get away from me/this isn't gonna be easy/but I
don't need you/believe me/you got a piece of me/but it's just a
little piece of me...these days I feel like I'm fading away." Adam
talks about "Have you seen me lately", "It sums up the touring, fame,
and everything, saying where it brought me to"(Graff 3).
The second half of the album is about a lot of the same feelings,
but it's more about dealing with them. "Miller's Angel" is about
something that horrifies you and you're crying with it. (Graff 3).
Adam wrote this song for the movie "The Crossing Guard". The movie is
about how life is so momentary and suddenly disastrous, how little
things can effect somebody's life (Graff 3). Adam wrote the song to
talk about the suddenness of life. "What if you lived in the fear of
that?", Adam says, "what if they were angels, but instead of being
benevolent, they were ambivalent, just there to do a job and hang
between God and us. And they just hang there and wait till it's time
to go pluck you off" (Graff 3). The song "Recovering the Satellites"
sums up the album so well. The song is all about being in the
spotlight, someone talking about another person. When Adam says, "But
we only can stay in orbit/For a moment of time/And then you're
everybody's satellite" he is saying that were only in the high life
For a moment, then we crash. We're picking up the pieces of our life. The album
cannot end without a beautiful ballad called "A Long December". Adam
wrote this song in a hospital room with a very close friend who was
in a car accident in December. "A Long December" starts off with "A
long December and there's reason to believe/Maybe this year will be
better than the last/I can't remember the last thing you said as you
were leavin'/Now the days go by so fast". The song is about Adam in a
nutshell-people leaving, me leaving, days going past (Graff 3). By
the end of the song, what Adam says, "I can't remember all the times
I tried to tell myself/To hold on to these moments as they pass." You
have to remember to hold onto these moments of your life because life
can be like flashing moments that pass by you. Adam said about this
song, "I have to stop letting myself believe that my life is
something that is not necessarily happening to me. But it has
happened and there are moments that are worth holding onto"(Qtd. in
Goldberg 6). Your loss doesn't mean gone forever, you have your
memories. The things you lose don't have to be gone forever, as we
always make them out to be. Memories we keep (Goldberg 6). "A Long
December" ends the sophomore album by the Counting Crows with a taste
of hopefulness that things will be better.
In conclusion, the Counting Crows may not like all the attention
they have been getting lately, but with the lyrics that they sing,
fans are helplessly clinging to them for a sense of understanding. I
have been moved by them for years and years now and I credit my
friend for introducing them to me some 3 years ago. My life may not
be as complex as Adam's but I have my own problems. Some of them are
very similar to his problems, but I take that gift which Adam gave me
and I play it over and over till my problem is solved. I may be an
obsessed fan to drive practically 1100 miles for a concert and find
out that it was canceled, but I have no regrets about doing it. Adam
said, "Do things the way you want to do them, you'll have no regrets.
If it doesn't turn out well, at least you're clean, you know"(Graff
3). Well, I have no regrets about buying their albums because the
Counting Crows have shown me another aspect of life.
-A term paper written by Bryon Schmitz