Counting-Trains

Counting-Trains t1_jed074n wrote

even if one were to argue that august and everything after is Counting Crows’ best album, which i’d personally have to say it’s not —their second album recovering the satellites is musically, lyrically, and vocally more impressive than the former, the band has three other nearly perfect records after august; recovering the satellites, this desert life, and hard candy. as it stands for all great artists, the “best” record they output doesn’t necessarily standalone as their “peak” if it is that they continue to produce music at a high level afterwards; ie. counting crows. if august is your pick for their best album, that’s perfectly understandable, but if recovering the satellites, this desert life, and hard candy are like marginally 3-7% less convincing than AAEA as an album at worst, it can’t be that such consistent quality would lend their peak to being defined by their efforts in 1993 alone.

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Counting-Trains t1_jdono4f wrote

—counting crows do this on their song “monkey” from recovering the satellites in 1996; it references ben folds.

—“Got nowhere but home to go / Got Ben Folds on my radio right now / I’m in trouble for the things I need / Hey monkey don’t you want to be needed too?”

such a great song off of an even greater -and rather under appreciated- record.

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Counting-Trains t1_jdgqp7n wrote

adam duritz from counting crows.

-adam’s words in song are just far too incredible to not fully acknowledge:

“all at once you look across a crowded room / to see the way that light attaches / to a girl” - a long december

“if dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts” - mrs potters lullaby

“and the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings” - also mrs potters lullaby

“and I keep thinking tomorrow is coming today, so I am endlessly waiting.” - st. robinson in his cadillac dream

“step out the front door like a ghost into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white” - round here

“all the regrets you can’t forget / are somehow pressed upon a picture / in the face of such an ordinary girl” - hard candy

“some chick yells Jesus loves me more than I know but less than I need” - John Appleseed’s Lament

“in beds in little rooms / in buildings / in the middle of these lives / which are completely meaningless” - perfect blue buildings

“at seventeen, had a better dream, now I’m thirty-three and it isn’t me,” - all my friends

“and he seems so close as he reaches out his hand / but we are never quite as close, as we are led to understand” - when I dream of michelangelo

“the color of anything, fades in the air, / she is the film of a book of the story, of the smell of her hair.”

-these aren’t even close to all of adam’s incredible lyrics through the years with CC. just truly remarkable as a lyricist/songwriter; def one of the greatest of all time and most under appreciated/underrated of those individuals imo.

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Counting-Trains t1_iy1uc4f wrote

for me it’s gotta be “hey, soul sister” by train. nothing says being insane more than lipstick stains on one’s frontal lobe, game show love connections, cutting rugs into odd shapes, colliding with Mr. mister mister mister, and an UNTRIMMED CHEST. Pat monahan truly is one of the greatest lyricists of the past 20,30,40,50 years -and of all time tbh- and if i could meet him irl i’d totally give him one drop of jupiter for all of his hard work over the years! Hey! Hee-eey! songs pretty catchy tbh and pat’s a good singer but what the fuck are those lyrics lmao. A true train wreck of words that must have been more than a trip to write and sing in front of OTHER people. More than insane ost

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