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E20: Daylight in Baltimore
288 Plays7 months ago
In this episode, we shine a "song spotlight" and perform a very deep dive into two Crows' songs that are perhaps somewhat unappreciated:
Daylight Fading , and
Raining in Baltimore.
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 20
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome to episode 20 of Sullivan Street, where we are going to get into two of, uh, kind of Chris classic, maybe somewhat unheralded songs, daylight fainting, fading and raining in Baltimore. I am Eric Vogel saying, and let's first say hi to my co-host Chris Smith makes Chris happy May 2024. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited to be, uh, doing this. You know, we've probably we've done is we've taken.
00:00:42
Speaker
the albums apart, we've gone through concerts, maybe some of the bigger songs. But I feel like kind of by nature, there's always a song every time we do an album where I'm like, man, can we talk for longer about that one? But it's inappropriate because there's five of us and we try not to make seven hour podcasts. This is kind of a nice opportunity for us to kind of talk about a couple of songs that we both really want to get a little bit further into that aren't some of the bigger songs from the records that we've covered already.
00:01:11
Speaker
Exactly. Call it like, you know, we were almost thinking, you know, unappreciated songs or, but I was also thinking to song spotlight because we could do it to any song in the future. You never know. So yeah, we chose these two and we'll get into reasons why in just a bit.
Counting Crows Tour Announcement
00:01:27
Speaker
So first, some Counting Crow's news, not a ton of news since last month.
00:01:32
Speaker
The two biggest things would be that the summer concert is one month closer than when we talked a month ago. So it's actually we're recording this May 18th. They're going to go on tour. The official tour basically starts in one month, mid-June. Yeah. So that goes for 10 weeks. So there's a festival coming up. Yes. So they'll be out there and hopefully we'll start to see
00:01:56
Speaker
again, what they're playing, if there's anything new and different. I'm hoping at least one or two surprises, right? I know a lot of it is kind of set. I did that mathematical kind of evaluation last time of, oh, these, whatever, X songs, 10 songs are basically set. And these six come from a rotation of 20 and whatever. But yeah, no, it should be, it'd be great a couple new songs into the rotation. And it looks like to be about a 10-week tour.
00:02:27
Speaker
really a summer tour. No doubt about it. Most of them with Santana. And we will see how it goes. And as we said before, we both have tickets set for the East and West Coast as usual. Chris in the East and myself in the LA area. And hey, who knows if you can drop us a line.
00:02:46
Speaker
Maybe if we have time, we'll even be able to meet you ahead of time, right? I already have a few people that said they might want to meet. We can have the Sullivan Street get together or something like that before the show.
Completion of Butter Miracle Recording
00:03:00
Speaker
The only other thing is that recording, there's no real news about Butter Miracle, Sweet 2 or Sweet Tooth, except that recording, it seems like officially wrapped up
00:03:15
Speaker
And what we mean by that is that we made a comment last time that Dave and Dan
00:03:22
Speaker
were not in the studio when they recorded the main songs or the main parts of the songs. And Jim said, well, you know, it's kind of too many people. He kind of, a quick comment about it, almost like, oh, a little too many people they'll be in later to do, I guess it's overdubs, right? And that did happen and there's Facebook photos. So Dave and Dan are still in the band. And as you said beforehand, Dave's, Dan's hand is okay, I guess, if he played. Yeah.
00:03:51
Speaker
But, you know, look, if there's anything fans of bands on the Internet love to do, it's recklessly speculate. Yes. And so it's it's nice to get full photo confirmation that everyone's OK. Everyone's playing and everyone's going to be a part of the record. And, you know, we always just we're just curious. We're just curious people.
Evolving Songwriting Roles in Counting Crows
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah. And what I want to know, and this is more I swear of curiosity than like annoyance or whatever, but
00:04:18
Speaker
I'd love to ask Jim or anybody in the band, is it really easier that way with fewer people? I guess it depends who did the songwriting. If that's the case, then why on the first four albums did they put everyone together? Was it just because they wanted that way to create it even if it's more difficult? I don't know. I'm not in that field. Well, you would also think though that being in the house the entire time, whoever was laying down the basic track,
00:04:47
Speaker
You know, you could you could still lay down a basic track and have people do overdubs. Right. But, you know, you've got everyone just around. So maybe it was a faster process. I also imagine, again, a bit has to do with everyone kind of getting older. Oh, absolutely. Family things and just sort of like, hey, if we're not going to have people around, hey, if we just need, you know, we'll lay down the basics, we'll bring the people in later who need to
00:05:11
Speaker
not wasting. Maybe Dave's like, I don't, I got, I got my kids. I want to go hang out with my kids. Don't waste my time, guys. And hang out as an agent. And his, his, I know he has a studio at his house too. He's, they've talked about, so maybe he's just, you know, playing around that. Yeah, no, it's just, it's just a different, yeah, no, it's just, it's just the way the band seems to be now where mostly Adam and, uh, and I, and, and, and, and Emmy seems to be the number two writer now and the number three might even be a Millard.
00:05:38
Speaker
in there. And then, of course, Jim is in there for most of the things that drummer. Yeah. So those are those are the main four. And then it seems to be cut. I mean, it's all songwriting goes and Charlie and then if you because even if when Jim last year was kind of commenting on the band members and almost I don't know reading too much into it, but like that Dave now right where Dave was one of the main songwriters. Now he kind of adds the
00:06:02
Speaker
finishing touches and his little parts and also maybe, I don't know, smooths out the edges or something like that, right? That's kind of what he contributes now. It's just a different version of the band. Yeah. Yeah, different roles. I mean, it's different. And it would be interesting, though, for anyone in the band who's been in the band sort of the entire time, it would be interesting, I think, to talk about sort of that evolution of the recording process. Yes.
00:06:27
Speaker
I'm hitting the only people who could probably do it would be Adam, right? Dave and Charlie. They're the only people who've been on every Counting Crow's recording. That's true. Dan joined right after the first recording of the first record. So those are the three with the keys to the kingdom who can talk about the whole journey. Yep. All right, great. So that's it. Great, great point.
Focus on 'Daylight Fading'
00:06:52
Speaker
So let's go into daylight fading, which was my, we were thinking about different
00:06:58
Speaker
themes and what to talk about for episode 20 for our major 20th anniversary celebration. And I said, it was nothing. I mean, I love daylight fading. I talked about it during the show. I forget how I ranked it. I guess I should have looked, but it was also, I was thinking of kind of gross singles. And I know like when we did the round here, although around here we were mainly focusing on the different live versions.
00:07:22
Speaker
We didn't really get into around here as a single. We didn't talk about the video or anything. But I was just thinking, I was like daylight fading. People forget that it was a single that came out kind of at the height of their popularity or at least close to the height.
00:07:35
Speaker
great single is pretty successful, but it's almost people forget that that was a single, right? When people go to the concerts, they're like, oh, they better play hanging around and around here and Mr. Jones. You don't hear people saying that as much about daylight fading. And then someone could say, well, maybe it wasn't that successful. Well, sure, maybe it wasn't as successful, but
00:07:56
Speaker
They hear some facts about the song. It was a top 30 single. It was, I was going to say a top 30. And at first I thought it was just top 30 single for the old, for the, for the adult track, but it was actually a top 30 single on the pop charts.
00:08:12
Speaker
which is pretty wild. And it was also top 30 single on the alternate rock charts and the rock charts. So four different billboard charts in the US. It was a top 30 song. It has its own Wikipedia page. If that doesn't say it all, I don't know what doesn't.
00:08:28
Speaker
It was the third and final single for Recovering the Satellites, and officially that single came out in May of 1997. As I think I actually said on the Recovering the Satellites episodes, I have just a memory of... Well, I was living in New York at the time, didn't listen to the radio much because, right, I was just commuting on the trains and going to work, right? You didn't get a chance to, but on the weekend,
00:08:55
Speaker
don't think too deep about this. I'm not too altruistic. But at the time, my girlfriend convinced me to do a cleanup day at a park or something like that. And I was within a van. And I just remember they just had the radio on and Daylight Fading came on. And I just remember thinking as a huge Crows fan, I was like, wow, this is cool that this song that
00:09:14
Speaker
I don't know, it's not this super poppy song and it's not going to be a top 10 hit, but that is cool that this is on the radio. And it also kind of validated that people like the crows and it was a good happy medium because I didn't want the crows to be everyone's number one band or because then things will sign a sour, but they were popular enough. Right. So it is something an interesting aspect of the band is is they've been
00:09:38
Speaker
Especially and especially at that point, right? They're they're real big in a lot of ways, but they're never at that point. They've already kind of In retrospect kind of crested the peak of their popularity And so yeah, you've got kind of a maybe a bit of a middle ground of like people like this with me, but they don't You know, I'm not being inundated with everyone being a counting crows fan. Exactly. I ask you so what now what is your
00:10:05
Speaker
What is your relationship to the song? What made you pick this one? What makes it stick out for you? As I said, I guess that was part of it that I think of all the singles. I think it's an underappreciated single. I don't think it's an underappreciated song. I think most Counting Crows fans like it and casual fans like it. But I thought it was an underappreciated single. And I guess I get a little nostalgic to that time of Counting Crows, like you said, where they still had
00:10:33
Speaker
you know, videos on MTV, everything like that. There is some lyrics that kind of hit hard and we'll talk about that maybe in just a second. Just looking back, this is not why I picked it, but it's really interesting that all six band members at the time had songwriting credits. Which sort of makes, it makes sense in the context of that song because it's a fairly intricate song. Yes.
00:11:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that, that leads to the underappreciated part of it too. I, you know, I always have a soft spot to, to, to like top songs that make the top 40 that are good from bands that, but no one remembers that top 40 song. You know what I mean? Like go to, I don't want to say hall notes. That's a bad because they had so many, but think of,
00:11:28
Speaker
I just can't think of any on top of my head. But in the 80s, I was a big chart watcher and stuff. And if you think of some popular 80s song, everybody knows them from that number one song they had. And I'm like, well, they also had four other top 40 songs. And some of those are great. They just weren't top 10 songs. But when they play 80 songs on the radio, they don't play those other ones, even though they were also top 40 songs. And I feel the same thing about daylight fading. So it's more of that big picture of why I chose it.
00:11:57
Speaker
And broadly, those tend to be more interesting songs. The second song that got played but wasn't quite as big a hit, a lot of times it's because it's a little bit more interesting, a little bit less straightforward. Although, again, the comparison here would be to Long December, which is a stone cold classic. And Mr. Jones. That's true. Oh, that's true. For this one. But I do think it's generally true.
00:12:26
Speaker
Look, Long December is like an incredibly beautiful ballad, but it's pretty obvious why that's a great song. Daylight Fading is an interestingly put together song with, I think, a more obtuse lyric than Long December. And an arrangement that's, again, just much more intricate, right? Long December is a very simple and beautiful
00:12:50
Speaker
sort of arrangement of a song, whereas Daylight Baiting is all about this sort of weaving of the instruments kind of going together in this sort of pop nugget kind of aspect. Yes, and in a way that'll contrast with the two songs we have, right? And writing in Baltimore is even more simple than Long December. So, well, one interesting thing too, and I almost, again,
00:13:15
Speaker
Maybe I never mentioned this, but maybe one of you fans out there have it. But I actually had collected every, and it cost me quite a bit of money. I want to say around 2005, I bought on eBay every Counting Crows CD single. And Daylight Fading was one of the few. Now I can't remember the other ones. I know Hanging Around was one, but there's like three of them, I think, that had two separate CD singles.
00:13:40
Speaker
So daylight fading, you had to buy CD single one, which came with daylight fading and two B sides, which I'll mention. And then if you wanted the other daylight fading single, you had to buy daylight fading two that had the same daylight fading single and two different B sides. So I don't know, let's say I spent $10 for each of those singles. So that was $20 to get a total of five songs. And this was back in 2005. So maybe that's like spending, you know, $45 now or something like that.
Music Consumption Evolution from CDs to MP3s
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah, it is amazing to go back to those times where, yeah, you would be like, look, I've got to get these B sides and there's no other way for me to hear them. Yeah, exactly. So the single. So a lot of these had a shoot. I didn't write this, but it had. Well, we'll go. Now it's a famous song, but single one had, of course, daylight fading and then time and time again live.
00:14:31
Speaker
Now, gosh, now I got to look it up while which recording because it was definitely one that you know, I think it'll be I'll look it up when we get back. And then it also had the Miller's Angels demo. Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's a long time. So for that one.
00:14:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's really good. And the one thing I didn't know when I was preparing for this song, or I didn't remember, is that on the Daylight Fading, and I don't know, for those of you that bought CD singles, it didn't come with much packaging, right? It didn't come with usually lighter notes. It was just like the piece of paper that just had the front cover. But somewhere on it, now I can't remember, maybe it was on the back or something, there was actually two notes on
00:15:16
Speaker
that Adam gave for the Miller's Angels demo. One of them said, Dave plays the solo on it, but I yelled, something like, but I yelled that Dan did it by accident. In the actual recording, it says something about Dan, or like, Dan, you didn't do that, or something, but you said it was actually Dave doing it.
00:15:39
Speaker
Although Dan and then he said this demo was recorded. But speaking of Dan, the demo was recorded 24 hours after Dan and Adam wrote it. So they did it really quickly. I said, oh, and the I found it on discogs. It's the John Anson Ford Theater in September 96 is where the the time and time again version is. OK, no, that's right. I have that now. OK, good, good. So because the CD two had two more songs from that same show.
00:16:09
Speaker
Gotcha. It looks like that's Daylight Fading and Rain King. And Rain King, right. So in that case, I said that I spent $25 on five songs. It was really four songs, because one of them was two different versions of Daylight Fading. But I had to have it. I was like, come on, this is one of my few hobbies. I have to, yeah. So by the way, at one point, I sold all of them on eBay, maybe $50 for all of them or something. I don't remember. So I hope it went to a hardcore Crows fan.
00:16:32
Speaker
And now you can probably get them back for like 25. It's a circle of CDs, but then if you buy them now for 25, in 10 years, you'll be able to sell them again for like 500. It's just a circle of media formats. Yeah, and some of these ones that had limited pressing, it's weird that...
00:16:55
Speaker
for some DVDs and Blu-ray, you know, not not, of course, you know, like August and everything after a Titanic, but some of the movies now it's like people are trying to fight for the, you know, not just the VHS, but the but the DVD because these are going away and they say, oh, you know, some movies go away during streaming, right? Like, it's true. You can't find them anywhere. But then on the other side, they're like, no, but CDs and DVDs eventually deteriorate. So who cares? And but, you know, I haven't really had a problem with my
00:17:23
Speaker
CDs deteriorating yet after 30 years. And that's why I've got shit backed up on hard drives. Yeah, exactly. That's true. That's a great point. Hard drives are less emotional.
00:17:36
Speaker
objects, but they are, they do hold a lot more stuff because I feel like if I was trying to cart around CDs, I cart around enough stuff. My wife would really hate me if I was trying to cart around like a full collection of Counting Crow's bootleg CDs. Especially your collection. Yes, exactly. And so the hard drive is a much more reasonable format for that. That makes everyone a lot happier.
00:18:04
Speaker
But yeah, I think it's, it's, it is that thing of like, I recall buying, going to generation records in the village and buying used CD like bootlegs because the, the, the original ones were like $45 for a show, you know, and you're like, yeah, it's a lot of money, but that was before high-speed downloads, you know? And that's why I never had like the, the, um,
00:18:30
Speaker
the demo tapes, because I didn't want to spend that much money in my 20s on a or go to the village in New York and buy it, spend that much money on it. I just like, no, I just thought that just seems like kind of a waste. I'll just stick to the studio releases. But yeah, no, not so much of an issue now. Yeah. Now you just well, even because there was a there were different stages to it because the first one was like MP3s from like websites like Hummingbird's Nest and Anna Begins, where you would just
00:18:59
Speaker
We should slowly wait for that thing to fall, come down, that song to come to you. And then we'll just download everything if we want. And as we get another song, Spotlights, in future years, we'll talk about maybe some of the other releases. I know The Hanging Around had some interesting releases. I think that's, at the time, the only place you can get maybe a big star.
00:19:23
Speaker
besides some arounders.
Exploring Alt-Country Influences in 'Daylight Fading'
00:19:24
Speaker
I think it was released on one of the, like the UK single two of hanging around or something like that. I remember getting so, but anyway, we're going to talk about a little of some of the videos of daylight fading, but I will ask you and I'll mention a little bit about the song itself and the lyrics. One thing in retrospect, and this will come up as we, and you kind of hinted at this already. And when we get to the live versions,
00:19:50
Speaker
And I think Jeff Harkness might have even said this when we did the review of the album, how maybe this was their first really notable kind of alt country song or alt country rock. And it's funny because that's not a huge reason why I like the crows. So you think that that would be the choice, but that's not why.
00:20:12
Speaker
But that said, and I do think some live versions of it, you hear more of that country. One reason I love the studio version, and I guess I'll give credit to either the mixer or Guild Norton is, but you kind of said this, like, it's like a great, to me, it's like a perfect, not only is it kind of more complicated arrangements, in general, I like the kind of crowsongs that have complicated arrangements because I listen to them so much. So I like finding little nuggets and little layers.
00:20:41
Speaker
And I think I said this even to David Lowry with some of the songs on that album for sure. But this song is kind of a mix of being somewhat poppy, somewhat just Counting Crow's, you know, melancholy rock, and then also a little country mix. So do you agree with that? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely got, yeah, there's elements of the mix that are sort of twangy, but then the guitars are also out front in a way that's very,
00:21:09
Speaker
like 90s modern rock, right? So there's, it is almost like if you took a Graham Parsons song and really like 90s rocked it up, but if you kind of stripped it back and you played it
00:21:24
Speaker
maybe with more acoustic instruments, but with the drum, I mean, cause obviously they play it on across a wire, but they strip it kind of further back. But I feel like if you, if you just kind of stripped kind of the electric guitars, you'd get to something that kind of sounds like grand Parsons and the fallen angels, you know? Yeah, great.
00:21:44
Speaker
This song, yeah, I highlighted some of the lyrics. I'm not gonna dissect every single line of lyrics. Now this is one song that maybe Jeff Harkness mentioned in his book or maybe I, you know, I don't listen to his Money Live song album.
00:21:57
Speaker
tracks is you. This is one song I'm not 100% sure about the actual the big picture meaning I've heard some people say it has to do with life and death itself. Some people say just like a lot of his songs, it has to do with a relationship ending for various reasons and they're far away and but they'll be you know, one in the future. You know, it's funny. It's not why we chose it, Chris, but but
00:22:21
Speaker
One of the, well, one thing that these songs share is that they both have reference to the telephone. Yeah. And which of course sometimes hits a little harder and different now in the smartphone age, but this one, I mean, how appropriate is waiting for the telephone to tell me that I'm alive? Right. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. They're both, and we'll talk more about this, but I think they're, they're both songs that are
00:22:50
Speaker
specific but kind of a little bit obtuse, right? Because, well, certainly with daylight fading, right? Yeah, absolutely. I think it is pretty unclear what that is about about because it's naming pretty little.
00:23:07
Speaker
I think even sort of by Counting Crow standards, it's naming a fairly little bit. Oh, yeah, right. Because they're famous. He loves mentioning specific things or people's names or places. And this one, you're right, is one of maybe that's why I didn't know. I mean, he calls out the California, but besides that, there's not a lot of. Yeah, I kind of take it. I was thinking about this today. I was listening to it again.
00:23:34
Speaker
like anything else, I kind of assume it's about Adam. And given the nature of recovering the satellites, I kind of assume the topic is similar to the rest of recovering the satellites. I can sort of see that the anger and eloquence bleeding into fear being about how
00:23:55
Speaker
you know, Adam was this taken on the world and obviously very eloquent, all the big words, you know, the songs could be the eloquence. Yes. And sort of finishing the tour and kind of retreating, right? And that's the fear, right? Is now do I come back outside, right? Now that I've been embraced by the world and then gone internal, how do I kind of become external again?
00:24:23
Speaker
And you kind of, and feeling again, kind of disconnected, right? He told that story on, on one of those podcasts recently about like getting called up and people telling him to come down to the Viper room, you know, and that you could connect that to sort of the telephone to tell me I'm alive. It's, it's waiting for your friends
Emotional Connection with 'Daylight Fading'
00:24:38
Speaker
to call and say, come, come do something. You know, because otherwise again, and connected maybe like to Miller's angels, right? I mean, I might not have gone outside yesterday, right? So the telephone is pulling you out is like a reminder.
00:24:52
Speaker
Yeah, that could be that. I always thought too that that's an interesting take. I never thought of that. I always thought of that more of like, especially back then when you, you would call somebody and you'd leave a message, right? With their voicemail or their answering machine. And you're basically waiting for them to call you back and you need that validation, whether it's like,
00:25:12
Speaker
You know, I had a first date. I want to follow up or oh I didn't talk to my girlfriend today or you know Or your best friend or whatever and then if they don't call you back that it's like if somebody doesn't respond to a text right away Like are they mad at me? Did I say something wrong? Did I whatever but then if they do okay now I feel better So I always thought about a little bit of that. I'm sorry Eric. I was watching my hair. I couldn't You know very busy Yeah
00:25:41
Speaker
Look, and I think that's again, it's part of one of the things I think makes the song very universal is there's like, it's interesting. I can't tell you what that song about is exactly about, but it definitely affects me. You know, which is why I thought it was interesting. You pointed me out, cause I had listened to it in a long time. The, the Viper room version, the sort of what could be best called like a demo version.
00:26:06
Speaker
because it's pre-recovering the Satellites release. And by the way, we are going to link the videos that we talk about in our Solomon Street YouTube page. So we will have that video that they're talking about with the different lyrics of the song. So please. Yeah. The lyrics to that are totally different. I mean, right? I mean, I've got it even more confusing. They're definitely not as good. I agree. I think they're definitely a first draft.
00:26:34
Speaker
And it's interesting. I actually think that one, that one's more about a her, right? That one's maybe either directed at someone or it's trying to distance it from Adam. I don't know. I couldn't quite get a total vibe there, but maybe that's part of the thing is that, and maybe again, maybe that's why it's interesting when you see a song rewritten that much, you know, what made him junk the original version so completely.
00:27:04
Speaker
But the music is the same. The song is the song. Yeah. Yeah. That particular version is a little more country. It didn't have that fine poppy overtones yet, but I agree with you. Yeah, it's funny. I was looking at the lyrics now, but it's funny. The line of all the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear. It's funny. That's the most eloquent line of the song too. So it's funny that it's not my favorite line of the song. I love it.
00:27:30
Speaker
When people say that Adam is a poet and he doesn't like that, or when people say that Adam is such a great lyricist, those are the kind of lines that they're talking about, I think, in a lot of cases. Yeah, because I couldn't write that. But at the same time, one thing I always love about Adam's writing are the lyrics that seem
00:27:51
Speaker
Simple, but I think they're much more complex than people give them credit for such as she said everybody loves you She said everybody cares but all the things I keep inside myself they vanish in the air now someone's like oh that might seem like a You know a 15 year old girl. They got mad about something or whatever but I think it's much deeper because it has like this a
00:28:12
Speaker
Like, as you said, he's dealing with all this inner turmoil. His girlfriend or girl he likes is like, oh, everybody loves you now. Everybody cares about your life is great. And then he knows, like he's sharing his life with the public, but they still don't really know the real him. And he has to decide about what to share and what not. And everybody, no matter how much they share, is still keeping things inside themselves. So anyway, I love that lyric. You know, but that's an interesting lyric because I think in the context of some of the rest of the songs,
00:28:41
Speaker
I don't know whether the person talking to the singer there, which we'll assume the person there is Adam, is being encouraging or
00:28:53
Speaker
spiteful. Yes, exactly. You could be an encouraging thing. Look, look, everyone loves you, man. Everyone cares. Like it's going to be okay. Like this is a good thing. People like your music or it could be like, dude, everyone loves you. Everyone cares. Stop being a sad bastard. You know, and I think more resentful, like everybody loves you because you're the big rock star. Yeah. You know, and I, cause I think, you know, I, it's interesting as I'm thinking about, I kind of connect that to those,
00:29:22
Speaker
those versions of round here where there has the middle part about like the things that are, she says it's only in my head, right? Which as I'm thinking about it, again, kind of goes to the same thing, right? I think I always thought about that as she says it's only in my head is sort of like comforting, right? It's only in your head. Yes.
00:29:43
Speaker
But again, that could be the same, same way, right? So she says it's only in my head and she's telling me like, get out. It's just in your head, man. Like you're going to be okay. And, and you know, thinking about it, you know, I've gone through, you know, kind of a lot of stuff over the last six months and it is interesting how it almost doesn't matter how people intend something like that because it's about how you're hearing it, right? That could be intended in a kind way.
00:30:12
Speaker
And sometimes you receive it kindly. It could be intended in a kind way. And sometimes you receive it very negatively. I've had a lot of people tell me it's going to be okay. Don't worry over the last few months. Your life is good. Yeah. And sometimes I hear it and go, yeah, you're right. You're right. I get what you're saying. And sometimes I'm like, stop that. I have no interest in hearing you say that. So I think it's kind of a,
00:30:40
Speaker
Again, it's part of the beautiful thing about these songs is that they're open-ended and they bring those kind of pieces of things out. He's leaving you.
00:30:51
Speaker
But he's leaving out enough of the story here that it leaves a lot of space to interpret. And just because we're looking at it here, I feel the exact same, maybe even more so, because maybe these come across as more right than somebody that doesn't like Hannah Crowe's and be like, oh, look at these awful lyrics. I want to say goodbye to you, goodbye to all my friends, goodbye to everyone I know. That sounds like my six-year-old or something like that. But I love those lyrics. And again, just from hearing Adam interviewed and how I take him, I'd love to hear his
00:31:20
Speaker
I think he'd agree with this, but that him writing that, yes, part of it is that, yes, he might go inside and stay inside all day. Like Miller's angels, but he also knows this is a guy who is very loyal to his friends and still has his friend. Like he talks about that all the time. He knows he's never going to say goodbye to all of them, even though he wants to. Um, and he can't really start his life over. Like this is kind of hinting. He's this rock star. He wants to be a rock star, even though he has these,
00:31:50
Speaker
twinges or whatever of wanting to just seclude himself from the world. So, but you know, I think I joked about that when I, and it's the last lyric thing that I'm going to say is that when, like I said, whenever like happened recently, I guess, when I was in England, but if I take like, especially a long distance train during the day, I always think of goodnight Elizabeth, even though I don't drink on the train anymore. But,
00:32:17
Speaker
But like when I'm in California now, when it starts getting cold in California, I always think of this song. So yeah, I don't think about leaving yet. By the way, before we get into the actual video, which we're going to do next is this song has a video. One thing, one YouTube comment that came up a lot. I think this might have been because I sorted it by most recent a couple of times. And by the way, Daylight Fading surprisingly has like a million views.
00:32:44
Speaker
I thought that was kind of surprising. Yeah, but how many is Mr. Jones have? Oh, of course. But that's my point. Sometimes I do. 37 million. Oh. And sometimes I do go to these, again, artists that I like and I see their second single and I'm like, wow, nobody saw this one. But what was I going to get? Oh, that I guess one of the things that people were writing on this and the live version was that the Daylight Fading should be named the official solar eclipse song. A lot of people were writing.
00:33:14
Speaker
Fair. I just thought that was funny. And some of those people didn't even seem to be Crows fans, but they said they were thinking about it a lot when they were hearing about the eclipse. So let's go to. I have some thoughts, but let's go to your take and thoughts about kind of Crows official video for Daylight Fading. I got nothing. OK, something, something about a cult, maybe. And oh, you're saying it was about. Yeah, I couldn't. I yeah, I got like.
00:33:44
Speaker
I don't know. I remember that video. It was reasonably effective, I think, as a music video. I kind of like the parts where the band is playing. It looks kind of cool. It's kind of like, um, like dark, uh, dark Mr. Jones from the way, like the way they're like kind of sitting in kind of a similar ish room and with the.
00:34:03
Speaker
the light kind of passing through. That looks cool. But in terms of what it's about, man. Oh, yeah, I don't know. I got nothing. Some of the a lot of the YouTube comments were like, this could be the most definitive 90s video of all time. Like it's like just of that era.
00:34:20
Speaker
even for people that were more like casual fans. Are those supposed to be crows in the beginning? Do you know that there's birds? There's like 10 birds flopping around in the beginning. I think they're supposed to be crows. And it looks like they were computer added with 1997 technology. Take a look at the first 10 seconds of that video.
00:34:43
Speaker
Hey, one thing I wanted to take you, you're more of a music buff than me. Some of the comments, and again, this just got me thinking about things. I appreciated that. A lot of people thought this was very REM-ish or REM-inspired, which I had never thought, but I could kind of see what they were getting at, but a couple of people wrote that. Huh. You know, that's an interesting thought. I could see some of that, like some of the later
00:35:09
Speaker
If you compare this to like losing my religion, for example, like kind of a heavier version of losing my religion in certain ways, you can, yeah, I think you could feel the, I definitely think when the band goes more pop, there are kind of a set of influences that are in there. And I do think, I do think that like late, especially in like late eighties REM is one of them in that regard.
00:35:39
Speaker
Again, I always kind of come back to like Graham Parsons with them because I think that's a lot of the Adam's influence. It's clearly a really, really big one. Like compare this, for example, to like them playing Return of the Grievous Angel, right? And you can kind of see some of the thread.
Influence of Other Musicians on Counting Crows
00:35:58
Speaker
Again, they're not the same song or anything. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you can kind of hear the where the connections kind of come from.
00:36:04
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah, it's funny. One other thing about the video besides like the cold or whatever that is, is that when he says like, you know, heard, you let some, you know, get your, get their fingers into you. And then they show like a random photo of some girl who I guess is supposed to be his girl, but it never comes up again. And you don't get a good look at it. And they don't just show the girl. It's like, it's like he has a dark room or something. And just like, you know, it was just really funny. That's one of those lines live. Sometimes he'll do like, he'll do something with his fingers and it's a little bit,
00:36:33
Speaker
It's like, what are you, what are you applying there? I don't know. Yeah. Is that really what that line's about? I, you know, they, uh, Charlie's got to go tee in the video. So that's kind of, I always thought I, you know, that's a little trivia interesting, a little Charlie's different look. There's one part I, this is so random, but when I was, cause I'm a huge, I just love Charlie so much. There's one shot and maybe actually, I don't know about Charlie's.
00:36:58
Speaker
Maybe Jeff would know this or you. I don't know because Charlie's stuff is sometimes so complicated and he's got the playing of either the background part of the piano and then the main part of the piano. It's layered sometimes. I don't know if he records two different sessions sometimes and overdubs. I don't know. But there's one shot of Charlie around the 115 that it seems to be pseudo solo-y, but then he's not moving his fingers. He's just playing the chord or whatever. I don't know. It just cracked me up. I'm like, I think that's bad editing, but maybe I don't get it.
00:37:27
Speaker
The only other comment I have as a long crows fan is that I always like when they show the other band members, like you just said, besides Adam and this one, they don't that much, but when they do, it's, it's damn, they kind of, which is interesting, right? Cause he wasn't an official band member of when the first was recorded, right? Or whatever, but this one, it was like, this is the guitar guy. He's the solo guy. Um, of course this was pre Emmy. So that, that stood out to me. Yeah. He gets,
00:37:56
Speaker
When they're playing, he definitely gets the most time because you're seeing him play. There's that interesting scene where like Matt and Ben are like staring at some light or something together. But yeah, otherwise in the actual like playing scenes, you don't see them a ton. Yeah, Dave was kind of in the background on this one in the video. Okay, this makes sense. This is a fairly Dan heavy song. Yeah.
00:38:22
Speaker
The last thing we'll get into when it comes to Daylight Fading are some of the live versions. We're not going to go into 20 versions like around here, partly because they don't really do that many alts or things like that for this song. But I think it's worth mentioning a couple. For those Daylight Fading fans out there, I looked it up.
00:38:50
Speaker
and this is a, throughout their career, this is a top 20 song that they play, despite me saying they don't play it as much as their other singles, because they don't play it as much as their other singles, but it's their number 19 song of the Cannon Crows concert set list, and they did play it three times last year, so that gives you an idea. It's a rare song. I think my guess on this one is this is not one that they have to practice, so if they decide to play it that day, they know it.
00:39:18
Speaker
They last played it regularly. They generally played a few times a year. They last played it regularly back in 2015, 2016, where they played it almost every show. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I think that's one of the interesting things about the song's history is that it's never fully faded out of the repertoire. Right. There's times where it's been rare, but it's never been like, oh, they haven't played it
00:39:47
Speaker
in years, you know, which is kind of interesting that it's it's always been it's always been there. Yes.
00:39:55
Speaker
So we'll have, I mean, I watched like five live song, you know, we already talked about the rarity one with the alternate lyrics. There's one from a year ago in Sydney. If you just want to see a real recent version, I'll put that on the YouTube channel. I didn't have a real observation. The two that I was going to comment on a little bit was it's featured on the County Crows channel as part of the 2018, 25 years in counting tour.
00:40:19
Speaker
They did a live version there. I thought it was good, although Adam's voice, I thought, wasn't that great in that one. I don't know if... Did you watch that one, the 25 years? I hadn't, but that was a long tour. I don't know when they filmed that. That's like a three-month tour. It just sounded a little tired. I could tell almost like he was trying to use this as his breather song because maybe it's not the hardest to sing, so he was trying to sing it in a way that could give himself somewhat of a rest.
00:40:47
Speaker
It was interesting, of course, one thing that stood out, especially compared to the other one, which I'll talk about in a second, which was really live right after, or during your single time, that Emmy, of course, is part of the band now. And some of the songs, as we've talked about, he'll play a leading role in a song that he had nothing to do with in the original thing. This one, he does play, I think it's, does he play the mandolin the whole time, I think?
00:41:15
Speaker
So this is one that, for the most part, he adds kind of an extra layer, but he's not the lead in this song. It's still basically Dan. Which I think kind of plays into a little bit, again, some of that country rock thing, right? This is an electric guitar song, but with a mandolin on it, too. You know? Yep. Absolutely.
00:41:40
Speaker
All right, we already talked about that, about being like the old country rock. I think when they play it live, they do play it a little more countryish now, and that kind of just is what you said. We'll talk about, gosh, there's one thing I want to say, and it's not just because we had him on the podcast, but as I'm looking for detail in this, you know, during my homework of researching, just Matt, and I understand, too, that when Matt Malley was first in the band, they didn't have as many guitars and he had to play up front in a lot. But I'm talking about even in the,
00:42:09
Speaker
in some of these when he was in the back. Matt just plays the bass differently. And for this song in particular, go watch the two different versions. When Matt is playing, both in the video, but also in the live versions, he's playing the bass. Again, I've never played bass guitar, but he's playing the bass like you would expect someone like how Dave plays the guitar. He's playing whatever. Strummy, I guess I want to say, right? Or he's doing it. And then when
00:42:39
Speaker
So I guess he's adding more to the main sound, I guess I want to say, or if you were, if you watch a Millard play.
00:42:46
Speaker
for example, in this version, he, and this is for most of the songs, Millard's basically playing with one finger. He's doing it very quickly, but he's doing it one finger, hitting one at a time, right? It's just a different, and this is the song maybe that, to me, it stuck out the most. I've kind of noticed it before, but I don't know, you please, you can write us, if you have comments about this. If we have any bass players out there who want to discuss relative technique on some of these songs. Oh no, it would be interesting, I think, to break down some of these songs.
00:43:17
Speaker
and compare because I think you're right they are kind of different bass players and it's subtle enough I think sometimes that it's hard to like pick out the exact things but I'm sure
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah, and I just it just goes back and I don't have a value opinion. I mean, I really like Matt and of course I have some sentimental feeling because he was on the show and because because he was one of the original members, but it just but even it almost like metaphorically where they are when they play that
00:43:48
Speaker
you know, Millard is back with Jim and they were friends from before and they played together before it's like this is what we do. We're this unit in the back and we provide this at where Matt was always kind of an in between guy like he was kind of like one of the more
00:44:03
Speaker
like prominent players I guess right in some of the songs but but he's not a lead guitarist or anything so almost like he was more mid-stage and did his own uh yeah so anyway that was just one observation I had I uh one last thing we didn't talk about for the song is I do like that little and I'm guessing Ben added that he was one of the writers that little little drum jam that goes right before Dan Solo there's a little
00:44:28
Speaker
drum part.
Live Performance Dynamics
00:44:29
Speaker
And Jim plays it well. But I'm guessing that's the part that Ben added as a songwriter, one of the main parts he added in it. I thought it was very good. And of course Jim plays it excellently and with that typical Jim passion when he plays. The other live one that I watched, and the last one I'll talk about, you might have some final thoughts, is that they played it
00:44:54
Speaker
I guess I just want to note that they played this on the Jay Leno show in April, 1997. And, um, when they're announced Jay Leno goes, this is their first time on the tonight show. So I thought that was interesting that their first time on the tonight show was this song of all songs. The, the last single. Yeah. It's interesting. Also they didn't make it on thinking about it, but they didn't make it on a 94 or either.
00:45:19
Speaker
Yeah, obviously we all remember the Letterman performance and you know in the Saturday Night Live but they didn't make it to the Tonight Show until later. And maybe they just thought that was enough or maybe Dave was more I mean I think even Adams talked about how much he loved Dave Letterman growing up so maybe to him that was enough and Dave was more whatever authentic or I don't know.
00:45:40
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have much about that. His la-la-la's are particularly good. I love sometimes Adam Live. He just, like, because you can't be at 100% for 90 minutes or whatever, or two hours during a show. But I love, even nowadays, Adam sometimes for some songs will just be like, I'm playing this one to 100, I'm gonna sing this one perfectly and with all my energy.
00:46:05
Speaker
And, you know, again, you can't do that for every song. And sometimes he does it for parts of songs. So this part when the la la la part, you can just all like he turns it on and he's like, OK, I'm going to shine here. And he does. So that's about it. I've talked about before that when I see Dave and Dan, I always laugh at some of the earlier
00:46:25
Speaker
shows because they still have kind of, they have some of those, right? Because I've seen it so much, they have their little mannerisms, right? Where, I don't know, Dan in front, the way he does some of the solos, and Dave does this thing where he like, right, he always bends his knees and almost like goes down like 50% when he does his kind of main part. So anyway, they do that on the show. So you might, you might laugh at that. I wonder if they'd be embarrassed, like looking back on that. I don't know. I think it looks cool, but. Any other final thoughts on Daylight Fading? No.
00:46:53
Speaker
Okay. So we'll go into your choice and you can get into why you chose and some of the history, et cetera. Yeah. Rainy in Baltimore, which is one of my, in a lot of ways it is one of the most, I think like meaningful crows songs for me. And
00:47:13
Speaker
You know, interestingly, from a lyric perspective, we've talked about it in daylight fading. I was thinking about, I was breaking down the lyrics again as we were preparing to record this. I was thinking about, this is kind of a, in a lot of ways, it's very much like a classic Counting Crow's lyric in that it's rich with details, right? There's little things. There's the circus, the big top, the phone call.
00:47:39
Speaker
like there's, in fact, a lot of the song is really just these tangible things, the sound of a freight train, all these things that are just like these details. But if you try to break down what exactly is happening, other than someone that the singer would like to talk to is far away, there is nothing here.
00:48:07
Speaker
He gets no answers and he gets no change. But you don't know what he's answering for. You don't know whether he's at fault here. Other than the fact that he says, I miss you, I guess that I should. Maybe there's a sense that the singer is to blame.
00:48:28
Speaker
It's one of the things I think, though, I love about the song is that it kind of connects to you in a lot of different ways because it's that openness. It's emotional and connecting, but very open. And so you can kind of hit it from a lot of different angles and fill in a lot of different details for yourself.
00:48:51
Speaker
while again, while the song is still very evocative. I feel like it's a song where you can sort of see the story, you can see the singer in these places. And you have that imagination for yourself, but then it's very easy to slot yourself in there. Yeah, it's funny. I like your take. I like that we bring different things to it. I like when you said about things being very tangible. I never thought about that. No, that's good. Those parts that you were talking about,
00:49:21
Speaker
Like I can always hear the free train. I always thought like one thing that's great about this song and saying great because such a depressing song in many ways that the lyrics again, if somebody read, read these lyrics and they didn't know kind of grows, they'd be like,
00:49:37
Speaker
What are these nonsensical lyrics that don't have anything to do with the line above it? Like, I need a phone call. I got to buy a new car. And then I like I can hear trains. Like what? That's what again, that's what my six year old says. You know, and it's actually it's funny. So we're going to talk about three versions of the song. But one of them is I have this very distinct recollection of one of the versions we'll talk about here is there's a 2003 version
00:50:05
Speaker
from an Amazon webcast back when Amazon producing video was an exciting and new thing. Who'd have thought this book company might also be doing some video stuff because it wants to sell CDs. Who'd have thought, I wonder if that'll get them anywhere. But there's, I remember hearing that version and
00:50:28
Speaker
being talking to a friend and I was like, oh, you got to hear this. And they were getting kind of antsy because it's long. It's Rain King into reigning in Baltimore. So it's eight minutes long. And I was like, just let's just skip right to this part. And I went to that part where, you know, I can always hear a freight train. Baby, if I listen real hard, this big swell behind them because the way the band and my friend was like. You were really moved by the line about a freight train. And I'm like, well, it's not.
00:50:55
Speaker
It's not so much that it's about the freight train, it's about the sound of the feeling about hearing that freight train and what that means sort of in this contextual, I'm sorry, let's go get another beer. You give up sometimes, but it's yeah, I love that line and it's really not, yeah, to your point, it's not sensical. I don't know what being able to hear a freight train has to do with anything really, but
00:51:25
Speaker
I, again, I think it's that sense about loneliness and that feeling of the feeling of where you are relative to somewhere else, right? That you're in this place and you're stuck here, these little details of this place you are. And the other person you want to be around is not in that place with you.
00:51:44
Speaker
And I think it's weird. Anytime something kind of bad happens, in this case, maybe I don't know, a breakup or something like that. And I guess in the long sense, there's things that are much worse in life, right? Like death, but that, but when it's weird, because you ever noticed that when you are focused like on a break, let's just say one of your, I don't know, twenties, 20 something breakups, like maybe some days that's all you can think about. Now, again, maybe you're at work,
00:52:06
Speaker
or whatever but like if you're at home like to your point if you're at home thinking about it you also do feel kind of random thoughts are also still coming in your head.
00:52:16
Speaker
as you're sitting in your bed thinking about her. And then you might think, yeah, maybe I should buy a new car. Maybe that'll make me happy. Or I'm a new me. And then, of course, then you think of something else. I really like that. No, it's true. Because I think we think about these sad moments in your life. You think, well, I could only think about that. And it's like,
00:52:36
Speaker
That's not true. It's not true. You think about lots of stuff, right? Yeah. Or you notice things again that. Yes, you start noticing. Right. Exactly. These train conversations are passing me by, but I've got nothing to say. You're noticing there's people kind of talking around you and you're looking at yourself going like I'm here. I am just kind of sitting here. And who cares? I mean, if it's a train conversation, you don't have to participate. Yeah. And then you're noticing in your absolutely. And then even like when you say I'm lonely for the big like that's
00:53:07
Speaker
you know, almost like project. Again, I think it's another thing of like a project. I think there's a lot of Adams lyrics where he's saying, if this, if I did this, then maybe I'd be happy. But deep down, he knows that he's not. It's almost like the Mr. Jones thing, right? Everybody loves me and it's not true. But I feel the same thing because like here, like, okay, break up and then like, oh, I wish, I wish I lived in a big town. Maybe I'd be happier then or something. But then of course he knows that he won't be any happier because he'd still be dealing with girlfriends and all that type of thing.
00:53:37
Speaker
He gets no answers and he gets no change. Exactly. I think the lyric that hits hard, no matter how old you are, and you could argue that it hits more as a middle-aged person, is the, you get what you pay for, but I had no intention of living this way. Like, hey, this is all me. I knew what I was going to get. It's not a surprise, but in the same time, it is a surprise and this is not who exactly I wanted to be, even though it was all me that got me here. He's taking responsibility.
00:54:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think anybody, if you were like fighting addiction in your life or you hurt people or just like, I don't know, or all of a sudden you're, I don't know, fighting with your spouse about the kids or something, you'd be like, I kind of see how I got here, but this wasn't really what I wanted.
00:54:25
Speaker
It ended up in Baltimore for some godforsaken reason. Exactly. And you're just like, why on earth? I could be in any other city. That's true. I'm a big Baltimore lover. I'm actually a Baltimore lover. I'll give a shout out. There was someone I found recently, a fan of the podcast, who was going to join the Baltimore show, and she's living in Baltimore now, but she's not from there, but she had to go overseas. It didn't happen. No, it's... And I think that's why this is a song that's sort of
00:54:52
Speaker
Recurs in my life, you know, I feel like it sort of pops up in places and pops up at times and it just kind of strikes me Because it is kind of evergreen and you're right I think it it is something that you sort of understand when you're younger and you really kind of understand it later you know the idea of this is kind of my fault and or not my fault but just sort of This is where I am and I just sort of have to accept it
00:55:18
Speaker
Yeah. And it kind of is your fault because you could see why I made these choices. Like it's not, at least to me, I think it's not that much of a surprise that this happened given my choices. It wasn't like I chose A and suddenly this thing happened. Like at least that's how I think of it. Like logically I could have seen this happen, but I still didn't necessarily want to get this part of the destination. Yeah. I always think of this, there's interesting, like again, so the way this song sort of comes out, I was a college debater.
00:55:47
Speaker
And I have this distinct recollection of getting deeper into a tournament than I ever had before and trying to, going over every time we were the ones that we had to present a case. And so we went to, we're going to figure it out. And we're in the, at George Washington in DC, not all that far from Baltimore. And I'm like sitting there, we start talking. I was like, wait a minute. My friend stopped me. And there's just this kid.
00:56:13
Speaker
just, there's a piano in this place. I don't know why there's a piano. And he's just, he's just tapping out, raining in Baltimore. And I was just like, huh, there it is. Yeah. And it's all going to be okay. You know, it's kind of one of those songs it weirdly, it's a very sad song, but it weirdly because of that. And we did go on to win the round. It's always kind of made me feel like it's going to be, it's going to be okay. Cause I do think there is an odd,
00:56:40
Speaker
I don't know, it's not a very hopeful song, but I think there is that sort of feeling that this is just kind of a moment in time.
00:56:49
Speaker
Oh, I think that's a theme of kind of crows. I've always said that, and some songs are stronger than others when they show that, but it's like, I think I even heard him mention this recently, but I always thought it. It's that blend of being so optimistic and pessimistic about life and the future at the same time. And I kind of always been like that too.
00:57:14
Speaker
you know sometimes both hate and love life and think and both and I'm probably 50 percent life's not worth living 50 percent it's the most amazing thing worth living so and you're absolutely right so I get that even this is one of their quote-unquote more depressing songs I think yeah there's a there's a tinge of optimism in there yeah well especially as it keeps going on you know not to be not to be too morbid about it but there's a lot of Adams contemporaries who are are not here anymore
00:57:39
Speaker
Right. A lot of them by choice in one way or another. And someone who wrote some really fucking sad songs is in his 60s and he is he is still here, you know. And so, yeah, I think it speaks to that of like that that fundamental kind of optimism in life, even even though, again, like he could certainly go go sad song for sad song with pretty much anyone. But that dude's that dude's still here and he keeps going and he keeps kind of making these things.
00:58:06
Speaker
Yeah, one, this is the one lyric that I, the last one that I want to talk about, you can talk about some of the one that always kind of hit me. And I think it hits me more now because by definition, as the older you get, when you miss someone, it's further back in your life. Right. So. Well, one thing I kind of struggle with that I think is interesting here is I think this is maybe a lot of people do this, but I think Americans more than other groups is that.
00:58:36
Speaker
they tend to like not acknowledge their past and I'm not talking about just their mistakes where people hide that fine but almost like oh I'm not in high school anymore what do I care about what happened in high school or like oh what about that first wife you had like that's old news and I'm not saying you should be still dating your first wife if you have a second wife
00:58:58
Speaker
But what I'm saying is that some of the things from your past, I think it's okay to still think about and miss them. If you really like them, you should have missed certain parts of them. It doesn't mean that you have to. And I find that Americans don't do that as much. And sometimes, at least people that I talk to, they're almost like, oh, I don't talk to anybody from college, maybe one person. And then I think, well, what's the point of all of that, Dan?
00:59:22
Speaker
So sometimes the reason I think of this is I think I was like cleaning out something recently or something. And there was either something that reminded me of a girl from the past. And I almost thought like, oh, I really do miss her. And then I almost thought of this. I guess that I should. Because I think I should. I think I should. Now somebody else might say you shouldn't because she's married or whatever. So anyway, that lyric to me, I think it's kind of deep. But that's why I love Adam. I get hit by things like that.
00:59:50
Speaker
No, and I agree with you. It is part of the, I think, life and it speaks to the sense of, again, there are things that you need to get away from that you need to get away from them to move on, but there was something nice about it. There's a reason why you were there in the first place, you know? And yeah, because, and again, you kind of combine those things, right? I miss you. I guess I should.
01:00:15
Speaker
But also, I had no intention of living that way.
Themes of Acceptance in 'Raining in Baltimore'
01:00:18
Speaker
It wasn't gonna be me and I was gonna get out of here, regardless. But I miss you. I miss what we had, even if it wasn't the right thing for me forever. And it is interesting, yeah, as you get older and you realize that people go, sometimes people pass away and you do get that sense of
01:00:41
Speaker
Oh yeah, there was a thing, sometimes you'd forgotten about it. You hadn't thought about a person in a long time and you're like, oh yeah, it would have been, there's a connection that you lose a person, you lose a little piece of you. And sometimes it can be small, but you're like, oh, that was,
01:00:56
Speaker
There's that little bit that's gone, you know? Yeah, because if you don't keep that part of you, then what's the point of everything, anything, right? If you have five friends now, then you're saying, well, in five years, you'll have different friends, and then what's the point of any of these friends now? Is it just transitory or whatever? Yeah.
01:01:13
Speaker
Anyway, a little different, but that's what lyrics was. Did you want to, I'll let you talk about the shows, but I'll just give the trivia that I did, not trivia, but that I did for A Daylight Fading, which is that I think it's a good preface.
01:01:27
Speaker
I think for listeners of this podcast, they're not going to be surprised that Raining in Baltimore has not played that much on the tours. And I looked it up. And again, I think this is not counting when it's been mixed. So the number is actual higher, like you said, if it was mixed into an alternate lyric. But I guess by itself, it said that it's number 76.
01:01:50
Speaker
on the list only played about 50 or 60 times and very little by itself over the last 15 years. The last time it was played regularly was back around 2008, which now is almost 20 years old. And just for the record,
01:02:06
Speaker
56 times would put it under New Frontier and Dislocation, songs that you do not think of them playing regularly, and put things in perspective even more. Angels of the 14th Street, just one of the songs from Butter Miracle Suite 1, has been played about a hundred times. So with that- I hadn't looked at those, yeah, that all of the Butter Miracle songs are in like that 98 range now. Yep. It is, and I will say, if you go to Setlist FM, I think it's
01:02:34
Speaker
it's kind of wrong because there are definitely a couple of times where what you'll see in the set list is Rain King reigning in Baltimore and reigning in Baltimore does get its own line when it's clearly it's part of Rain King around here or something. So I would actually think that the actual play number is at least is lower. Oh, by itself, maybe in the 30s. Yeah, I think probably in the middle. I'd say it's probably in the 40s somewhere if I had to. I didn't go line by line with it, but
01:03:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely a little bit lower even than it gets credit for. And really, if you kind of break it up, I think there's kind of three errors to the song. The first is that they played it in the acoustic sets on the Recovering the Satellites tour quite a bit. The total there was in 97, was 37 times. That's by far the biggest year they've ever played it.
01:03:32
Speaker
and there's a good version on YouTube from Devore, California. I don't know where Devore, where is Devore? Do you know where that is? Yes, yes. It's basically San Bernardino out here. So it's right along. So for those from LA, if you're as soon as you go east and then you're about to head over the mountains, if you're going to Vegas, it's right there. And I think there's like a little league,
01:03:56
Speaker
championship field out there there's there's nothing out there it's it's a little sleepy town it's right before you get to the mountains but i had to look it up yep that's where it is i i think it speaks to how many dates they played in 1997 when they're like oh yeah there's just out in that place somewhere in the middle between la and vegas it's out there somewhere there's a little league field next to the next to the thing but yeah there's a good pro shot video i think it's one of the best tapes from the that tour and
01:04:23
Speaker
there is the version of Reigning in Baltimore, and it's beautiful. It's such a stark, the stage is very stark. The lineup at that point, it's just Adam, Immy, sorry, Adam, Charlie, and Matt. And I actually liked the very beginning, because Adam was sitting at the piano and he goes, hey Matt, hey Charlie. And so it's a very sparse arrangement, very close to the original.
01:04:50
Speaker
Which by the way, we didn't mention, one of my favorite fun facts about this song was that Adam wrote this, he wrote this for Bonnie Raitt. The intention was that this was a song he was gonna give to T-Bone Burnett to give to Bonnie Raitt. And T-Bone heard him playing this and was like, we gotta put this on the record. Cause Adam was struggling through August and everything after the song.
01:05:17
Speaker
And T-Bone was like, we got to stop you playing this eight minute song and not being able to get through it. We're using Raining in Baltimore. He's like, but what about Bonnie Ray? He's like, T-Bone's like, it's fine. Which I, by the way, I enjoy Bonnie Ray. I've seen her in concert a couple of times. My wife is a big fan.
01:05:36
Speaker
I struggle to hear what Raining in Baltimore sung by Bonnie Raitt would sound like. I assume it would sort of be like, I can't make you love me, but I can't, I can't hear it. No, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't get it either. Yeah. Fun fact about the Vore, which I didn't, I don't think it's used much anymore. It's kind of dated, but it's the largest amphitheater in the United States.
01:06:00
Speaker
It fits 65,000 as I said, 65,000. Yep. As I said, I guess it's a big lawn, right? Yeah. I know that they still have every so maybe they stop that because I've heard some complaints. I know that they in the last couple of years they've had some I don't know EDM festival things, but that's about it. Like every so often they'll do that.
01:06:20
Speaker
As I said, it's about maybe an hour and a half to two hour drive outside of LA. That seems like a good place for an EDM festival. If you got to do it somewhere, a 65,000 seat venue in the middle of nowhere sounds pretty perfect, honestly.
01:06:36
Speaker
We've actually mentioned that show once before. I forget why or how. I don't know who was in the Matt interview. Yeah, I think we were talking about. Well, because it's one of the best again, if you're just because he's featured too. Yeah, he's featured. It's one of those videos. If you're looking at for a video from the 97 tour, it's a really good one because it's pro shot and it's all it looks beautiful. The band is playing well.
01:06:58
Speaker
And I love, I mean, that version of the song is very close to the original. It's basically a live version of the original arrangement. And Adam is singing it so beautifully.
01:07:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I said it might be I because as we've said three times now, it's one of the few quote unquote straight up versions of the song like that's like and it's great and he added extra soul I put yeah, and I said this might be the best version of the song that they don't play that often and be honest you told me to listen to it and it's the first of the videos that you showed me but it gave me the feels as the young people would say that was that was a good one.
01:07:35
Speaker
Yeah. That's because so much in that arrangement is Adam. You got a little bit of bass. Charlie's accompanying, but really, that version is just all about Adam singing it and just carrying that whole thing and you're just like, yeah, this guy's, he's very good at this, giving you the feelings. The next era, I think big era of the song is that starting
01:08:00
Speaker
I think the first ones in 2002, certainly it became a very common thing in 2002, is that they played it in the middle of Rain King. They also occasionally played it in the middle of around here, but most commonly it was played in the middle of Rain King.
01:08:16
Speaker
And, uh, the version we put up, as I mentioned, there's a, a webcast for Amazon from, uh, a very small club in San Francisco, Bimbo's 365. Um, which is actually, it's right across from the new Amsterdam when I was out in San Francisco last year and was at, you know, what's what used to be the new Amsterdam. I looked up the street. No, there's Bimbo's. So they probably, we played Bimbo's occasionally and hopped over to the new Amsterdam to have a drink. Okay.
01:08:40
Speaker
And so this was for promotion for films about ghosts. That's why Amazon was doing a webcast. And it's actually this is also a really interesting video to watch because it's the crowd is quite in the round. But the way it's shot that there's.
01:08:56
Speaker
kind of no stage. And so it's, everything's kind of at eye level. And so you get a very interesting angle on the band. I actually think it's kind of cool looking back on it. I remember liking it in the time and I was like, Oh, why did I like that? Cause it's a really interesting looking live video relative to most of them. What I would know for reigning in Baltimore with, with, in the middle of rain King is
01:09:20
Speaker
how much the band adds to it from a dynamic perspective. This is really one, if you watch it, Adam is bringing the band with his hands, right? He's bringing the band up and down and they are following him, right? They are all in sync together. And Adam's vocal performance is very, very good, but less big, I think, than like that 97 version. But that's in part, I think, because of a bunch of the work in terms of the dramatic tension of the song.
01:09:49
Speaker
is getting done by the band really kind of expertly with, you know, going to the Dan on the guitar and, you know, but just each of them kind of the, the swell, right? When he, when he talks about here in that freight train, it gets louder, right? As if you're hearing the rumbling of a freight train essentially in the arrangement. It's very, very cool when you kind of break it down. I, I, I've always loved it in there. And now if he ever plays reigning in Baltimore and we'll mention this in the next one,
01:10:19
Speaker
And this is one of those, oh, why didn't I think of it before when he talks about the guitar, Dan always plays a little guitar now. I don't think he would ever play it without someone doing guitar at the line when he talks about a guitar. Yeah. Well, I actually think in some ways, though, it's interesting because
01:10:38
Speaker
It's cool that he has, he goes to Dan, but in the 97 versions, you know, he could have had Dan come out there. Right. And I actually think the, the saying, I'd like to hear a little guitar and not getting that sort of right for the song. Like, Oh, I'd like to hear a little guitar. Sorry. Sorry buddy. No guitar right now. Just a little more, uh, accordion. No, I agree.
01:11:01
Speaker
Yeah, I could just write, you know, you get that feeling. I'm like, if Adam ever plays this live, he's going to have Dan come in with that little guitar. But you, by the way, one thing worth it for those that if you love rating in Baltimore, you might love the Adam piano songs, if you will. And at the very least in that song and that 2003 bimbo show, which I'll link again to the YouTube.
01:11:23
Speaker
Correct from wrong, it goes raining in Baltimore, right to Goodnight LA, and then goes to long December. So if you want to hear at least three songs in a row of Adam on the piano, because that was the tour that I saw him that he always did Goodnight LA into long December, which was nice. Yeah, which is interesting because that's a song that also works. Goodnight LA, I think, is a somewhat similar song. Maybe in the future, maybe I'll pick that and we do an underrated episode for the next couple of albums. Yes.
01:11:49
Speaker
because works very well as sort of a piano song, but also as a band arrangement. Like the band arrangement of Good Night LA is beautiful. The piano arrangement is also kind of stunning.
01:11:59
Speaker
You sometimes forget how good the band arrangement is because they go so long between playing it. Yes, that's right. Yeah, and I would just recommend that show. It's a really good... Again, if you're looking for an example of a 2003 show, that's a really good one kind of all the way through and a great collection of songs and shot in a cool way and the band sounds great. Absolutely. Yeah.
01:12:25
Speaker
Um, I used to, I actually really liked that one. I remember finding getting site. I like, I was able to burn, maybe I found the MP threes and I burned that to a CD. Speaking of media, I'm pretty, I mean, I might still have that one once somewhere. That might be one I've kept for some reason, but I used to bring that around a lot and just. If I was forcing counting crows on people, I would go to that show.
01:12:45
Speaker
because it sounded real good. And I was like, yeah, you'll like, if you like The Counting Crows a little bit, you'll like this. Yeah, I had heard that that was like, for example, the divorce show, I didn't know until I found it on my own five years ago. But but that 2003 bimbos, as you said, I think for whatever bootleg fans or whatever that that, yeah, I had heard that that was always a classic show. So yes. Yeah. Did you have something? Yeah, you wanted to
Evolution of 'Raining in Baltimore' Through the Years
01:13:05
Speaker
get in. You had one last one, I think. Yeah, the one last. So the third era of this song, I would say, is that in 2008,
01:13:13
Speaker
they brought the song back. Interestingly, right after they did August and Everything, after the live album in 2007, where they just stuck it in the middle of round year.
01:13:24
Speaker
in 2008. I'm glad you said that because I was going to mention when we said now, if you hear Raining in Baltimore, it's usually as part of another song. And I was like, they couldn't even play it by themselves during the one show that they were supposed to play every song by itself. Did he comment on that once? I did. But wait, what did he say? I think he did say something to basically to the effect of like, ah, we didn't want to do that. I don't know.
01:13:44
Speaker
We got that one in the middle, don't worry. I'm just laughing at someone who like only loved August and everything after and they just and they never bought another album from theirs and they just wanted to hear a live version of that total album and then they bought. I'm reading in Baltimore. Where is it? Don't put it in around here. It's right here. It's here. And. But yeah, they did. So Adam did a show in
01:14:12
Speaker
February of 2008, with Dave from the Gigolo Ants, and maybe one other person I think joining, a couple of people just sort of joining him, basically an acoustic show, it was like a benefit thing in Baltimore. And they busted out, reigning in Baltimore. And then about a week later, I went to see them at the Bowery Ballroom, and they played that song, just Adam on the piano with Charlie, and this time with Dan, right? So to your point, Eric,
01:14:40
Speaker
Finally, this time he was like, I want Dan on this. And actually Dan plays, first of all, Dan plays a really cool electric guitar solo on this. But Adam really hams it up. He's like, I'd like to hear a little guitar and Dan plays a little bit. He's like, I'd really like to hear a little guitar. He says it like five times. He's like, more.
01:14:59
Speaker
more guitar Dan as if Dan maybe Dan wasn't sure how long to play the guitar and uh Adam wanted to make sure he kept playing the guitar until Adam felt he was done with the solo that's that was my interpretation of that was was Dan just like I don't know you told me to play some guitar this is the first time I've done this because Dan definitely wasn't at that other that show the week before so it's like I however much guitar you tell me to play man I'm here for you I'm here to listen
01:15:26
Speaker
But yeah, and then they played it a few more times that summer. Interestingly, actually, I saw them play it again at the Blender Theater and then at PNC Bank Arts Center, always a great one to sort of work through. But then actually, the funny thing is they did end up playing August all the way through in Saratoga.
01:15:50
Speaker
And that's maybe the only actual performance of the album all the way through because they played reigning in Baltimore by itself. Which you can, if one does want to find that, you can find that on nugs. It's August 2012, August 12th of 2008 and all the 2008 shows are on nugs.
01:16:10
Speaker
all of the summer tour ones, not all. Yeah, I do not know that. Okay. So you can hear that whole version. I, and look, as someone who loves the song, it was really exciting to hear it separately from Rain King around here. I
Preferences and Fan Rankings for Songs
01:16:25
Speaker
would love to see him busted out occasionally. I think it's as like an intro, as one of the songs that could be an intro to long December, it's pretty beautiful and perfect. I get that it's not, you know, maybe everyone's number one, but I'd like to see them play it.
01:16:38
Speaker
a little bit more. It's been a long time. Oh, it's been a long time. As much as I like Sullivan Street in that slot, I also would love it as like the first song of an encore. Hmm. Like if you're going to play it and then maybe the second song would be more upbeat or whatever. But but but.
01:16:55
Speaker
I don't know, right? Because I think, as I said, I love when an encore has like one upbeat or almost one you were expecting and then one kind of throwback B side, if you will. I always, I always, I always love that. Would you want that? See, it's interesting there. I feel like in an encore, you'd kind of have to go with some kind of band version, but it'd be kind of cool to see them take that sort of middle of round here, middle of Rain King arrangement and translate it into just
01:17:22
Speaker
how do we get in and out of this, right? Cause that's really, I mean, they play the whole song when they did that. So it's not impossible. You just got to find your way in and your way out. Yeah. So the problem is that I, you know, again, I try to quantify these things and maybe if Adam ever listens to this, he'd be like, I'm going to do something different just to spite you. But it only seems like he wants to do like maximum two piano songs. Like,
01:17:49
Speaker
and one of them was Long December. So like last year he did The One by Taylor Swift in the Long December. So yes, he could do a rating in Baltimore in the Long December or Good Night LA, but yeah. Or just do it with the piano, but that's what I'm saying. Do it without the piano. Oh, I see. And it's just gonna do a band version like the one in the middle of Rain King. I'd love to see it. No, that's true. I'm sure at least a few people, again, I don't think I'm alone in kind of loving that song, because I do think it's a,
01:18:19
Speaker
Oh, you know, no, people that like that first album, you know, even those kind of casual fans that only have this album. Brandy in Baltimore is definitely I really believe it's one of their top five songs, even ones that like the I don't know, faster. I just don't think there's any doubt about that.
01:18:38
Speaker
You know, I don't know if that was validated when we only had four people on, but when we did the rankings or whatever. Yeah, but it sticks out. I think part of it is it sticks out, right? It is a song in a band that where.
01:18:51
Speaker
there do tend to be somewhat dense arrangements, because they've got a lot of musicians. They do have interesting arrangements. I think the sparseness of it is what makes it stand out. It's one of the few songs on record that is pretty much just piano. Oh, Chris, it was because of you. It was because of you, the negative. What I'm saying is that you're saying that I think most fans like it. I think they'd like to see it like me. But you're the one that ranked it lower on the August.
01:19:21
Speaker
on the rankings. We all had it in our top five, except for you. You put it number nine of 11. So, yes, the point is, yes, people do have it in their top five August songs. You just weren't one of them. How did I have it that low, man? How did I have it that low? Although I think, again, it's hard. Man, August is hard.
01:19:38
Speaker
But the point is absolutely everybody loves that. Yeah, most August fans love reigning in Baltimore. So absolutely, I would argue that we could talk about this some other time. There's like three or four songs that always come up of I wish they would play this more. I mean, again, Amy hit the atmosphere is like that. People love that song, even though it wasn't a single or anything. And the other one is like Up All Night. People want to hear Up All Night live.
01:20:06
Speaker
I think Possibility Days
Future Excitement for Counting Crows Live Shows
01:20:07
Speaker
is in there. There's a couple songs that fans like, I wish he would play this more. And I'm not just talking about Einstein on the beach, which he's not going to play. So yeah, they're never going to play on exactly right. I'm fully, they're, they're dug in on that one. They're never, they're never, although, you know, if much like, um, I feel like much like butterfly in reverse, if they start playing Einstein on the beach, they will probably play it forever. Yeah. It's one of the, it's one or the other.
01:20:32
Speaker
Or he'll play it on his last show ever. Or he'll say, nope, I'm not gonna play it now. When I said never, I meant never.
01:20:40
Speaker
Okay. Anything else to add for either of those two songs, or is that a wrap for today's show? Wait, no, but I checked this. I had a third. I had Raining in Baltimore third. Oh, did I? Something must have switched there. I don't know where it landed. Oh, you know what? Sorry, sorry. It was the opposite. Right. Oh, no, I was shut. Okay. No, no, no. It was a flip around, right? Yeah. Right. We all had it in there. I see. But I don't mind. Again, I totally understand why someone would have it lower.
01:21:06
Speaker
Because it's Egan, it's a hard song to rank against the rest of August. Like, I really love that song. And even for me, I think, as I was doing that ranking, it was kind of hard to be like, is this a better song than time and time again, or Perfect Blue Buildings, or Anna Begins? I actually don't know if I believe that. That's actually one of the things about it that I think is interesting, is I don't know if I would say it's a better achievement as a song than those ones.
01:21:33
Speaker
Yeah, no, you're right. I just really like it. It just means a lot to me. And that's why, you know, I wanted to spend a half hour kind of talking about it with greens. I had it flipped when I looked. And you're right, because I thought I had it number seven of eleven. I thought it was like five. So you're right. I think it's because I was comparing it to the actual songs, even though it has a lot of sentimental value to a meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:21:54
Speaker
All right, great. Sorry about that. Sorry, too. It was you that saved it. I was concerned that I had forgotten myself. I looked at the converse. What was I doing when I was ranking, reigning in Baltimore? No, I can't. No, it's a kind of Chris classic. So I think that's funny. No, I think that's like a B-side classic song and daylight fading is a somewhat off forgotten great single by them. So, yeah. All right. Any other parting thoughts today, Chris?
01:22:24
Speaker
I'm excited for tour, man. I'm excited. It's sneaking up on us. I'm excited for Counting Crow's live shows. I'm excited for our next album ranking one too. I think that's going to be super interesting. Those who have been following along and can see the other albums we've already ranked might be able to hazard a guess as to what the next record we'll be doing is. But yeah, I'm excited.
01:22:45
Speaker
Yep, all sorts of exciting shows planned for 2024. If you have an idea for a show topic or something you really want to hear, please let us know. Sullivan Street PC for podcast, Sullivan Street spelled out at protonmail.com. We do read all the emails and comments. So thank you so much. And we will see you next time down here on Sullivan Street.