Counting Crows

American musical group; alternative rock band

Counting Crows are an American rock band from Berkeley, California, formed in 1991. The band consists of Adam Duritz (lead vocals, piano), David Bryson (guitar), Charlie Gillingham (accordion, keyboards), Dan Vickrey (lead guitar), David Immerglück (guitar, banjo, mandolin), Jim Bogios (drums) and Millard Powers (bass).

Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows at EMC World 2010

Quotes

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  • I can remember being eight years old and having infinite possibilities. But life ends up being so much less than we thought it would be when we were kids, with relationships that are so empty and stupid and brutal. If you don't find a way to break the chain and change in some way, then you wind up, as the rhyme goes: a murder of one, for sorrow.

Song lyrics

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All tracks written by Adam Duritz unless otherwise indicated.

  • Step out the front door like a ghost
    into the fog where no one notices
    the contrast of white on white.
    And in between the moon and you
    the angels get a better view
    of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
  • Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand
    says she'd like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis
    • "Round Here"
  • She parks her car outside my house and takes her clothes off
    Says she's close to understanding Jesus
    She knows she's more that just a little misunderstood
    She has trouble acting normal when she's nervous
    • "Round Here"
  • Round here we're carving out our names
    Round here we all look the same
    Round here we talk just like lions
    But we sacrifice like lambs
    Round here, she's slipping through my hands
    • "Round Here"
  • Sleeping children better run like the wind
    Out of the lightning dream
    Mama's little baby better get herself in
    Out of the lightning
    • "Round Here"
  • Then she looks up at the building
    and says she's thinking of jumping.
    She says she's tired of life;
    she must be tired of something.
    • "Round Here"
  • Omaha
    Somewhere in middle America
    Getting right to the heart of matters
    It's the heart that matters more
    I think you better turn your ticket in
    And get your money back at the door
    • "Omaha"
  • Mr. Jones and me tell each other fairy tales
    Stare at the beautiful women
    "She's looking at you."
    "Ah, no, no, she's looking at me."
    Smiling in the bright lights
    Coming through in stereo
    When everybody loves you, you can never be lonely.
  • We all want something beautiful.
    Man, I wish I was beautiful.
    • "Mr. Jones"
  • I want to be a lion
    Everybody wants to pass as cats
    We all want to be big big stars, yeah, but we got different reasons for that
    Believe in me because I don't believe in anything
    and I want to be someone to believe.
    • "Mr. Jones"
  • Mr. Jones and me staring at the video
    When I look at the television, I want to see me staring right back at me
    We all want to be big stars, but we don't know why and we don't know how
    But when everybody loves me, I'm going to be just about as happy as can be
    Mr. Jones and me, we're gonna be big stars....
    • "Mr. Jones"
  • It does not bother me to say this isn't love
    Because if you don't want to talk about it then it isn't love
    And I guess I'm going to have to live with that
    But I'm sure there's something in a shade of grey,
    Something in between,
    And I can always change my name
    If that's what you mean
    • "Anna Begins" (Duritz, Bryson, Marty Jones, Toby Hawkins, Lydia Holly)
  • Every time she sneezes I believe it's love.
    • "Anna Begins"
  • When I think of heaven
    (Deliver me in a black-winged bird)
    I think of flying down into a sea of pens and feathers
    and all other instruments of faith and sex and God
    In the belly of a black-winged bird
    Don't try to feed me
    I've been here before and I deserve a little more
  • I belong in the service of the Queen
    I belong anywhere but in between
    She's been crying, I've been thinking
    And I am the Rain King
    • "Rain King"
  • Hey, I only want the same as anyone
    Henderson is waiting for the sun
    Oh, it seems night endlessly begins and ends
    After all the dreaming I come home again
    • "Rain King"
  • Take the way home that leads back to Sullivan Street
    Cross the water, home through the town
    Past the shadows that fall down wherever we meet
    Pretty soon now, I won't come around
    • "Sullivan Street"
  • I'm almost drowning in her sea
    She's nearly fallen to her knees
    • Sullivan Street
  • Take the way home that leads back to Sullivan Street
    Where all the bodies hang on the air
    If she remembers, she hides it whenever we meet
    Either way now, I don't really care
    Cause I'm gone from there
    • "Sullivan Street"
  • These train conversations are passing me by
    I don't have nothin' to say
    You get what you pay for, but I just had no
    Intention of living this way
    • "Raining in Baltimore"
  • I dreamt I saw you walking, on a hillside in the snow.
    Casting shadows on the winter sky; as you stood there counting crows.
  • I walk along these hillsides in the summer 'neath the sunshine;
    I am feathered by the moonlight falling down on me.
    • "A Murder of One"
  • All my sins...
    I said that I would pay for them
    if I could come back to you
    All my innocence is wasted on
    the dead and dreaming
    I dream of Michelangelo
    when I'm lying in my bed
    Little angels hang above my head
    and read me like an open book
  • Waiting for the moon to come
    and light me up inside
    And I am waiting for the telephone
    to tell me I'm alive
  • Daylight fading
    Come and waste another year
    All the the anger and the eloquence
    are bleeding into fear
    Moonlight creeping
    around the corners of our lawn
    When we see the early signs
    that daylight's fading, we leave just before it's gone
    • "Daylight Fading"
  • I will wait for you in Baton Rouge
    I'll miss you down in New Orleans
    I'll wait for you while she slips in something comfortable
    And I'll miss you when I'm slipping in between
    If you wrap yourself in daffodils
    I will wrap myself in pain
    And if you're the queen of california
    Baby I am the king of the rain
    And I said
    Goodnight Elisabeth
    • "Goodnight Elisabeth"
  • Children in bloom
    Cooking in the sun
    Waiting for a room of our own
    Leave my sister alone
    Cause she don't deserve this
    She is a flower
    And I am a flower
    And we are all alone
    • "Children In Bloom"
  • Gotta get out on my own
    Gotta get up from this waiting, waiting at home
    Gotta get out of this sunlight
    It's melting my bones
    I gotta get up from this slumber
    Just get myself home
    • "Children In Bloom"
  • Where's the funhouse this year
    The fairground's deserted and all the skies don't seem as near, but
    Nicole's my oldest friend
    But the altar is empty and she'll never be a little girl again
    • "Children In Bloom"
  • Miller's angels are hovering
    in between the earth and the sun
    in the shadow of God's unwavering love
    I am a fortunate son
    • "Miller's Angels"
  • So she takes her pills
    Careful and round
    One of these days she's gonna throw the whole bottle down
    • "Another Horsedreamer's Blues"
  • 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 that you said
    as you were leavin'
    Now the days go by so fast
  • The smell of hospitals in winter
    And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters,
    but no pearls
    All at once you look across a crowded room
    To see the way that light attaches to a girl
    And it's one more day up in the canyons
    And it's one more night in Hollywood
    If you think you might come to California...
    I think you should
    • "A Long December"
  • Drove up to Hillside Manor
    sometime after two a.m.
    And talked a little while about the year
    I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
    Makes you talk a little lower
    about the things you could not show her
    And it's been 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 my myself to hold on to these moments as they pass
    • "A Long December"
  • "I gotta rush away," she said,
    "I been to Boston before.
    And anyways,
    This change I been feeling
    Doesn't make the rain fall."
    No big differences these days
    Just the same old walkaways.
    And someday
    I'm gonna stay,
    But not today.
    • "Walkaways" (Duritz, Vickrey)
  • She sat right down on the sofa; I said,"Where have you been?
    I've been waiting for you.
    Cause last night I had something so good
    These days get so long and I got nothing to do
    I been hanginaround this town on the corner
  • We spend all day getting sober. Just hiding from daylight
    Watching TV
    We just look a lot better in the blue light
    Well, you know I gotta get out. But I'm stuck so tight
    Weighed by the chains that keep me...
    Hanginaround this town on the corner
    • "Hanginaround"
  • Well, I am an idiot walking a tightrope of fortune and fame
    I am an acrobat swinging trapezes through circles of flame
    If you've never stared off in the distance, then your life is a shame
    And though I'll never forget your face, sometimes I can't remember my name
    • "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby"
  • All the blue light reflections that color my mind when I sleep
    And the lovesick rejections that accompany the company I keep
    All the razor perceptions that cut just a little too deep
    Hey I can bleed as well as anyone, but I need someone to help me sleep
    • "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby"
  • And the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings.
    • "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby"
  • I am covered in skin;
    No one gets to come in.
    Pull me out from inside.
    I am folded and unfolded and unfolding,
    I am colorblind.
    Coffee black and egg white.
    Pull me out from inside.
    I am ready, I am fine.
    • "Colorblind" (Duritz, Charlie Gillingham)
  • For all the things you're losing
    You might as well resign yourself to try and make a change
    I'm going down to Hollywood
    They're gonna make a movie from the things that they find crawling round my brain
    • "I Wish I Was a Girl" (Duritz, Gillingham)
  • On certain Sundays in November
    When the weather bothers me
    I empty drawers of other summers
    Where my shadows used to be
    And she is standing by the water
    As her smile begins to curl
    In this or any other summer
    She is something all together different
    Never just an ordinary girl
    • "Hard Candy" (Duritz, Dan Vickrey, Charles Gillingham)
  • You put your girl up on a pedestal
    Then you wait for her to fall
    I put my summers back in a letter
    And I hide it from the world
    All the regrets you can't forget
    Are somehow pressed upon a picture
    In the face of such an ordinary girl
    And when you sleep you find your mother in the night
    • "Hard Candy"
  • American girls, all weather & noise
    Playing the changes for all of the boys
    Holding a candle right up to my hand
    Making me feel so incredible
    If I made you cry, please tell me why
    Cause I'll try again if you let me try
    American girls all feathers & cream
    Come into bed so edible
  • The gentleman caller in the blue suede shoes
    He don't know what to do
    He just wants to look good for you
    So he rushes in to tell you what he did today
    but he can't think of what to say
    I think you listen anyway.
    He wants to have a good time just like everybody
    He doesn't want to fall apart
    You watch him as he stutters over what to say
    It's just a little game you play
    • "Good Time"
  • It was cold when I awoke
    and the day was halfway done
    nearly spring in San Francisco
    and I still can't feel the sun
    • "If I Could Give All My Love To You (Richard Manuel Is Dead)"
  • Take some time before you go
    Think of Mondays coming down
    for the people that you knew
    and the one's that aren't around
    • "If I Could Give All My Love To You (Richard Manuel Is Dead)"
  • I got a friend at the New Frontier.
    And Galen, she said: "This is not America.
    You need a girl with electrical hair,
    And the word you wanted was 'Aluminum'.
  • Fix your hair just right
    and put your jeans on tight
    wear a dress so I can get it off real easy
    cause I been thinkin' I'd
    like to see your eyes
    open up real wide the minute that you see me
    • "Up All Night (Frankie Miller Goes to Hollywood)"
  • Got no place to go
    But there's a girl waiting for me down in Mexico
    She's got a bottle of tequila
    A bottle of gin
    And if I bring a little music I could fit right in
  • They left the television screaming that the radio's on
    • "Holiday in Spain"
  • Albert's always sincere, he's a sensitive type
    His intentions are clear, he wanna be well-liked
    If everything is nothing, then are we anything?
    Is it better to be better than to be anything?
  • And all the king's men reappear
    For an eggman, falling, falling
    The world begins to disappear
    The worst things come from inside here
    And all the king's men reappear
    For an eggman, fallin' off the wall
    Will never be together again
    No never be together again
    No no never never never again, uh huh
    What you fear in the night in the day comes to call anyway
    • "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)"
  • How much longer will it take to cure this?
    Just to cure it 'cause I can't ignore it if it's love (love)
    Makes me wanna turn around and face me,
    But I don't know nothing 'bout love, oh

    Come on, come on,
    Turn a little faster.
    Come on, come on,
    The world will follow after.
    Come on, come on,
    Because everybody's after love.

  • Oh, where do we disappear?
    Into the silence that surrounds us
    And then drowns us in the end.
    Where all these people who impersonate our friends
    Say, “Come again, come again, come again…”
  • You open windows
    And you wait for someone warm to come inside.
    And then you freeze to death alone.

    This dizzy life of mine keeps hanging me up all the time
    This dizzy life is just a hanging tree
    For me.

  • Now I live in the shadows where light is electric
    And time is a number that rests on a wall.
    And nobody knows me,
    My friends and my family,
    Are as far from this city as Washington Square.
    • "Washington Square"
  • And I dream of Michelangelo when I'm lying in my bed
    I see God upon the ceiling,
    I see angels overhead.
    And he seems so close as he reaches out his hand,
    But we are never quite as close as we are led to understand.
  • If you think you need to go,
    If you wanted to be free,
    There's just one thing you need to know.
    And that's that you can't count on me.
  • Have you seen the little pieces of the people we have been?
    Little pieces blowing’ gently on the wind.
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