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E41: Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings (Part I)
235 Plays9 days ago
Eric, Chris, and Geoff are joined by Ryan McCaffrey to deep dive into (and rank the songs of) Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings--the Crows' 5th studio album.
Paul from Malta also joins us to cast some tiebreakers.
Follow Ryan on Twitter https://x.com/DMC_Ryan?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
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Transcript
Introduction and Initial Reactions
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome to Sullivan Street, one of the last episodes of 2025, and we're going to get into Saturday Night, Sunday Mornings, an album, the fifth studio album of Counting Crows, and and in some ways unheralded, in some ways maybe a genius level record, but we'll we'll get into all the track. We're going do our rankings as usual and get a deep dive into the history of the album, etc. But first, let's talk to all the guests we have.
00:00:43
Speaker
Chris, I have to start with you. how how how are you? Good, i'm I'm doing good and i'm I'm happy to be here talking about this record. This is, I feel like one of the first Crows records I was really like there for at the release, very fully into it and I'll talk more about that. But like, I have a lot of fond memories of when this record came out and so I'm very excited for us to to go through all of it.
00:01:05
Speaker
Right, being being ah younger than at least me, maybe some of the other guests, I remember that, no, I remember you saying that this was kind of like a major time. i think you've mentioned that previously. And as usual during our album, Deep Dives, we have the historian, Jeff Harkness. Jeff, thanks for joining us again.
00:01:23
Speaker
Thank you. Excited to be here. It'll be fun to talk about this album. There are lots of songs, and I think in some ways it's it's the Counting Crows album that is most underrated by big Counting Crows fans. A lot of people love the first three or the first four albums, but this one is one that I think is just less familiar to Counting Crows fans.
00:01:45
Speaker
But I would say it's it's as ah you know worth exploring as any of their other albums. it's ah It's a great album. So it's going to be fun to kind of dig into one that maybe everyone's not quite as familiar with.
00:01:59
Speaker
I totally agree. Back to the podcast too. We have ryan we have podcaster extraordinaire, video game expert, communication. yeah know You're out there. Ryan D&C, Ryan McCaffrey. Ryan, thanks for coming back on.
00:02:14
Speaker
Thanks for having me back, guys. Happy holidays. This is, ah I appreciate that that intro to the album by Jeff, because this I feel I'm very much one of, I'm a i'm a major stan for this album. This album clicked with me right from the jump. In fact, I had heard 1492 a few years prior, actually many years prior to this album coming out at a show, which I can talk about later.
00:02:37
Speaker
But I love this record, and i'm I'm thrilled to be invited back to get to talk about it with you guys. Thank you, Ryan. I felt the exact same way for me. Also
Personal Connections and Memories
00:02:46
Speaker
on the guest. So we are the we're going to be the four main people talking about the songs rankings. But joining us as a special, I don't know, side character, Paul, um being a little of a smart aleck here. ah But Maltese Paul, Paul, who I met in Spain. Paul, thanks for joining us on the podcast.
00:03:03
Speaker
Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here and to listen to everyone's opinions on the album. I love Counting Crows, just like all of you. And it's always ah interesting to listen to. Yeah, now I met Paul, I talked about the last episode, how I went to the Barcelona Madrid shows. I met Paul in line. He was second, I think, in line of the super VIP. Chris's friend was first in line and Paul was second in the super VIP section. And Paul had his swag bag and I know at one point you had the sign, Butter Miracle. Later you showed me all of the signed and other material you have in your ah in in your flat. ah Jeff, I mentioned you when he goes, you know what? I think I have that book. and So he also he also has your book.
00:03:52
Speaker
um So yeah, Jeff likes that. um um well But it ends up that I told the the other guests that... Um, when I invited, we just happened to be on this album. So I said, Hey, join this one. And then ah two days ago, Paul said, you realize that's the album I know the least about, but we still wanted to have him on the podcast. He helped us with a couple tiebreakers and, uh, looking forward, but Paul just, um, well, guess we'll start with you. do you, do you, with your history? When did, do you remember buying this album? I know you said you didn't listen to it for a long time. You had to reacquaint yourself. do you have any memories at all buying it or not? Well, I remember buying it up on release.
00:04:28
Speaker
Um, And I played it. i It kind of grew on to me. um But I was listening to many other bands at the time.
00:04:42
Speaker
um So this is why I can't say I know it less than the others. Right. Now, that that that makes sense. ah Ryan, you said clicked with you right away. Any memories of you know first buying it, etc.?
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah, well, this one, as as I'm sure Jeff is is gearing up to point out because he's on top of all this, but just as a fan, this was the first of what would become ah a normal pattern. we This is when we went from ah like clockwork every three years for a Counting Crow Studio album to six.
00:05:16
Speaker
And this one also hit for me at ah at a really particular, i mean, I think this, we probably all feel this way about about albums that mean a lot to us in life. But for me, this Every Counting Crows album kind of marks a different phase or era of my life. And this one actually hit right as I had just gotten divorced. I got married young, didn't work. That's not a story for this podcast. But ah I definitely have memories of like,
00:05:46
Speaker
just belting belting out, you like screaming the lyrics to You Can't Count On Me as like a real kind of in the moment ah thing for me. but But that was sort of my life situation. But but it's ah yeah, this album really did just just click with me right away. and ah In fact, the first it first clicked with me.
00:06:06
Speaker
ah I am a graduate of Arizona State University, but I had friends that went to the University of Arizona down in Tucson. And in I believe, i should have double checked this before before the recording, but it's been a busy day.
00:06:21
Speaker
I think it was in the spring of 2002, think. Counting Crows played a little theater down at the University of Arizona. So I went down for the show and to visit my friends that were that were going to U of a and they played 1492. So it's like, there's this song that I had never heard before.
Album Creation and Themes
00:06:42
Speaker
And it was...
00:06:43
Speaker
the like hardest rocking song probably since angels of the silences at that point, like in 2002. So I was like, wow, that was, that was pretty cool. That was also the one time I've ever met the band. They, I waited for them outside the venue and they all came out and they, they signed my,
00:07:02
Speaker
August and everything after CD. And, uh, and I think I said to probably Adam just, Oh, I hope, I hope 1492 makes it on the next album, which of course it didn't, it took a little longer, but, um, but yeah, I, I definitely was, was ready for this one from day one when it, when it dropped in 2008.
00:07:21
Speaker
Yeah, I try to tell Paul, partly because I talked to Paul both before and after the show in Barcelona. And he ah after the show, ah he got pictures with, what was Emmy and Jim.
00:07:34
Speaker
And then he saw Adam, and he get and I said, ah Paul, that that yeah back in the day, used to be able to meet them. Nowadays, they do not come out after the show at all. So even the fact that you've met a couple, you know that you got to take a photo of a couple of them, you got to...
00:07:48
Speaker
like retro in a way. Right. Right. Chris, I was lucky. I was lucky. yeah um Jeff, let's ah go to you. Yeah. So this album, I mean, I think I've said before that the peak of my counting crows fandom was probably 2003 with the release of hard candy. I had been a fan since the beginning, but at that point they were my favorite band.
00:08:11
Speaker
Um, by the time that this album came out, um, what, six years later, um I was deep in the midst of six year study of the underground rap music scene in Chicago. And I was completely immersed in that. Every single night I was going out to clubs and going to hip hop shows.
00:08:33
Speaker
And I was writing this all documented in my first book, Chicago Hustle and Flow. And I was making a documentary film about the underground rap music scene in Chicago and interviewing musicians and deeply immersed in music, but deeply immersed in local Chicago rap music at that time.
00:08:51
Speaker
Cat and Crows was still it really one of my favorite bands. So when this album came out, I remember... getting it right away from online sources, listening to it right away.
00:09:01
Speaker
And it was not in the wheelhouse of where I was at musically. I've said before, I think that, you know, there's kind of two parts to being, you know, when a new album comes out, it's where is the band in their trajectory? And then where are you in your own life and your own fandom? And my music listening at that time was in a really different place. The one thing I remember, though, immediately was was going, oh I Dream of Michelangelo. That's like an instant classic song, instant Counting Crows classic. Even at the time, I recognized that, oh, yeah, that's that's ah that's the Counting Crows that I know and love. So I always remembered that song, and it stayed in my sort of wheelhouse for a while. But this was an album that I came it eventually came back to later and sort of deep dove into. And and I would say today that that I really love this album.
00:09:50
Speaker
um I think it's their... in some ways their most interesting and eclectic and certainly hardest rocking album in some places. And so it's been fun sort of discovering it as a longtime fan.
00:10:05
Speaker
All right. And before ah me, we'll go to Chris, your introduction to album. Yeah, it's interesting because I'm sort of the opposite to Jeff in that this was around the wreck time of the release of this record. This was one of like the peaks of my fandom. um I saw the band between August of 2007 and October 2008 14 times. um That sounds very impressive. and like i but the the furthest I went from New York City was um Washington, D.C., They were just playing New York a lot what when this record came out. And so part of my sort of relationship to this record is I saw them play it in small clubs. I saw them at the Bowery Ballroom play a two set show in which the second set was basically this entire record with the stories behind it. Wow.
00:10:49
Speaker
And so it's interesting. i I remember, obviously, when this record came out, but I also remember hearing the songs from it, you know, many, some of them way before at times, um because as we will talk about, some of them have histories, you know, way up before this record. Yeah.
00:11:05
Speaker
But they were playing these songs a lot and and they were sprinkling things out. you know Come Around had come out earlier, 1492 and Michelangelo. They dropped out kind of early um relative before the release. And so this is kind of one of the early um albums I can think of where – the band was kind of sprinkling things out in the way that bands do now, where, you know, you get to the record and you've already heard half of it because there's a single and a single and a single. um That's kind of how this one was. um And so it's interesting. I love...
00:11:37
Speaker
a lot of these songs, and i have I feel like a very deep relationship to the record, but I'm also not exactly sure how many times I've sat down and listened all the way through to this record because I was hearing them play the songs live, and that's kind of what I was interacting with, especially in 2007 and 2008. And some of those shows are, you know again, still some of my favorite shows. They played, you know everyone knows there's that town hall um show that was the August and Everything After DVD. The second set of that was five songs from this record um before they played some covers to close it out. So like they were
00:12:10
Speaker
out front and doing these songs and so I actually believe originally it was supposed to come out in late 2007 and for some reason they ended up pushing it back to March of 2008 so it's there was ah ah a big anticipation for it so it's interesting i I'm I had a very nice time listening to these songs and thinking about where I was in 2007 2008 so good times All right, great. And then that leads me leaves me. ah yeah ah Ryan, I'm with you i um So it
Industry Challenges and Comparisons
00:12:42
Speaker
really hit me where I was at that moment. Now, I it was i was living in Japan at the time at that at that week, and I had my my friend Todd, who I brought up a few times on the podcast because we've gotten into the crows together. He's drifted a little bit since then.
00:12:55
Speaker
But he brought me the album because i don't because he visited literally i think three days after it got released it was interesting timing and obviously used cds come out in japan but i think for some reason it was going to get a slightly delayed schedule there right it wasn't coming out that week uh so i was able to get it there and uh obviously i'd already heard the singles we'll talk about that that they released the internet singles so i've been listening to them already and uh Yeah, we'll get into the into the lyrics later, but i was, um I don't know, what's the party, like, ah things were, i like in some ways I was happy, but sometimes, but I also had no responsibility, and maybe, you know,
00:13:35
Speaker
How do I say more like either substance? when you have too much, what do they call them? I was like, you when you have too much fun, you start to go down to a rabbit hole. Right. And I think that's part of what what Adam's talking about. That's what this record's about. Like that is what this like the first half of the record, especially that is what that record is about. If you were having too much fun, Eric, you were having your Saturday night.
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah. And like kind of angry and hung over and the Sunday mornings we'll talk about. I mean, I literally, and then I was like, how can each album keep getting better? He he he knows me. His ghost is following me. Cause at that age of my life, um none of my other friends were, I shouldn't say that. Not many of my other friends were kind of going through what I did. Right. Where like in August, everybody's like, yes, I can relate to Anna.
00:14:17
Speaker
um Where this one spoke to me because I know other people were like, what are you talking about? I'm taking my kids to the park. What what what are you talking about? 1492. um so And then even come around and because yeah, when then Todd and I actually got into a, I shouldn't say a fall, it was a brief falling out, falling out near the end, then it lasted like a month or two, then it got back. But um part of that kind of tied to some of this too, related to also me going down the kind of, ah yeah, maybe negative, rabbi losing yourself in the rabbit hole, so to speak.
00:14:47
Speaker
Um, okay. So yeah, let's get into a bit of the history of the album. As I just said, released March, 2008, March 25th. Uh, like our guests have already hinted clearly, you know, maybe I wouldn't like that. I say this, but to me clearly it's, uh, the start of chapter two of the crows and we already kind of hinted this and the first album, um,
00:15:10
Speaker
I believe, right, that has all the the current lineup, right? So this is the first album. I know that that Matt and and Ben have some credits on here, but it's really that second chapter. Like you said, it was also the three years, three years, three years, and now we got the six years.
00:15:23
Speaker
um So yeah, the first with the lineup. ah The reviews were all over the place. I just looked again. I i always liked all music. I don't know why. i know a lot of people don't like them. They gave them four and a half stars, but other people two stars, and then a bunch three, three and a half B minus. So reviews were all over the place. ah so um they did it So the idea, and I'm sure Jeff will get into this, was at first just to record Saturday Nights as a solo album. Then he got these ideas and then recorded Saturday Nights and then Sunday Morning. One thing that surprised me, of course, ah Gil was the producer of Recovering the Satellites.
00:15:57
Speaker
And he almost doesn't get enough credit for this, right? People do not mention him. They always mention the great job in recovering. And they love recovering. And I'm like, yeah, some of those same whatever manager ingredients that Gil did to recovering are here, obviously. um One thing I did not know until today is that um Adam chose Brian jet Deck just by doing a bunch of internet research on different producers. Yeah, he's listening to records. He's like, like those. Yeah.
00:16:24
Speaker
So, um yeah. So as we hinted, that yeah I think it's it's about you know his his break into, I mean, he's hinted about mental issues in the past and other songs, but this is where it really came came to light, both in real life, because he was talking about his mental struggles for the first time when this got released. I remember reading that. like Literally like a week or two before was the first time I saw it in an interview. And clearly this is about mental mental health to challenges, some of the songs. One quote was, this is not about mental health, but wanting to mean something and then failing to do it, wanting to be somebody and then being less than you thought. I certainly relate to that. Interesting. Debuted at number three.
00:17:03
Speaker
which was higher than Desert Life and higher than Hard Candy. Although unlike those two, as far as I can tell, never got the gold certification, even though it said to get ranked ah to get the third, ah you know, number three on the charts that it sold 100,000 copies. Well, that's already 20% to gold. So, um you know, maybe it just a steep sell off. But this is the kind of time period where you're starting to get the thing where it's the fans of the band who are buying the record that, you know, they're picking up new people, but you know, I don't, I get, I don't know exactly how many of this sold, but like, yeah um it's the people who were excited to buy this record had bought this. They probably pre-ordered it on iTunes or whatever. This it's that kind of period. um
00:17:47
Speaker
But I also think interesting. You're talking the mental health. Cause I agree that this is, ah Adam was starting to talk about mental health a lot. And I think the other interesting thing around this time is that, You know, again, I mean, obviously it went through a lot of phases and I'm i'm obviously not in the man's head, but this was when he when they came back in late 2007, he was looking sort of visually healthier than he had in a long time. Like he was looking... sort of like sharp and engaged and the band sounded great. And like, it was just like, it was kind of, it seemed like he had come through something um kind of fully around this time. And that's part, maybe that's part of why he felt comfortable talking about it. I don't know. um But it is kind of an interesting time period in that regard.
00:18:29
Speaker
That's interesting. And i I hinted on this once and i was also really wasted. So I'm not sure, but I think I hinted at the only the one time I saw them that I feel that Adam wasn't really a hundred percent in it for whatever reason. And that was, as you said, a couple of years prior, around Oh five, I think it was. So, yeah. but I mean, he literally, when he talks about like kind of putting on my shoes and go, I mean, he literally put shoes back on around this time. was like three to Oh six. He played played barefoot. And then he came back in Oh seven and was like, yeah boots, boots, boots, boots
00:19:02
Speaker
I've got some cool boots and a lot of cool band t-shirts and we're going fucking do this. um And it's, it just, it was an interesting shift um around that time. And again, I think the part of it was the band sounded amazing, maybe partially integrating, you know, Millard um and maybe even Jim Foley at that point.
00:19:20
Speaker
um But that's kind of where the band was in a good place, I think around when this record came out. Now, interestingly, there is a quote unquote officially four singles. Okay. On the album. Now the first one was 1492, which I find that wasn't a real single. I know that it was a single released on the internet with the B side. Was it Michelangelo? Michelangelo. Yeah.
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah. And so, but I don't think that it got any radio airplay necessarily. um Then we had ah You Can't Count On Me, which we'll talk about when we get to it. That had a video, et cetera. And then it made the top 40. think it was of the adult contemporary, i guess. And then ah Come Around and also When I Dream of Michelangelo, which is funny, the B-side ended up being the fourth single. And I guess supposedly both of them got some radio airplay. I didn't hear any of those. And in fact, You Can't Count On Me, i really...
00:20:13
Speaker
I don't think I heard on the radio. I remember seeing the video on YouTube or whatever, maybe streaming on their website or something. i you know, it might've been played. I'm not sure. Um, just one little fun fact. I like to give a little fun fact. Um, I was just looking today that there is, um,
00:20:32
Speaker
which I didn't know, maybe some of you know, maybe maybe you, Paul, that there is a film, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, a 1960 British film, considered one of their, it was the 14th greatest British film of all time. fourteen cut Yeah, funny, according to the British Film Institute. And there are 14 tracks on this album. Coincidence?
00:20:53
Speaker
I don't think so. And it's about this about this man who spends all his weekends drinking and partying and having a bunch of affairs, too. So I thought that was pretty interesting. Jeff, I'll let you ah plug the holes into my ah album overview slash history.
00:21:09
Speaker
Sure. Well, um I think of ah several things make this an interesting and and kind of different album for the band. Adam talked about how during the Hard Candy Tour, he sort of hit a low point in Australia where his grandmother passes away and within five minutes he gets a second phone call, breaking up with his girlfriend at the time. And he was sort of feeling very...
00:21:36
Speaker
distant anyway, being that he was in Perth, so far away from sort of anything else. And he just said that for him, this was really a low point in his life. And he kind of hit rock bottom after this and and kind of bottomed out. Meanwhile, the band did have a pretty significant impact a hit with Big Yellow Taxi, the kind of re-released version of that.
00:22:00
Speaker
Accidentally in Love was a major song for them. And of course, they continued to tour. But for him, he said this was just marked a real low point. He wasn't even sure that they would record another album. He said, I couldn't even imagine doing another album or sort of continuing forward. He sort of felt like his whole life had become music and this band and that he didn't really have any kind of personal life um and felt just really, really at ah at a low point.
00:22:28
Speaker
However, there was this demo of 1492
00:22:32
Speaker
that had been recorded for Hard Candy. And he always he really liked the song. He said, I listened to it over and over and over again and sort of realized that there is some kind of, there's an album here. So he called the band. He said, come to New York City and I want to get into a studio right away. This was in June of 2006. So he got Gil Norton to produce, who had done Recovering the Satellites. 1492 was sort of the the catalyst for getting into the studio and bringing the band in, gets the band in and they bang out in a studio for the first time, nine songs. And this was the first time County Crows had recorded in the studio sort of famously, we've talked about this. They had always rented a house in the Hollywood Hills and you know stayed there and and you know sort of made this sort of organic process.
00:23:22
Speaker
This time they're in a studio and Adam said he couldn't barely even get out of bed at this point. They worked at the power station. It's now called the power station, which and partially it's a famous studio, it's a big studio, but also it was six blocks from his apartment. And he said that was about as far as I could i could get you know at this point. So they recorded what is the Saturday night's side of the album.
00:23:44
Speaker
A Come Around was also done during those sessions and working with with Gil Norton. And basically this was gonna be the album. So Adam talked about this and said that the meds that he was on, he had gained 70 pounds. he He called it his Brian Wilson period. He could barely get out of bed. He was really heavy, really felt bad about things.
00:24:05
Speaker
But he said, I started to sort of... think about that possibly there could be a companion piece to this album. And this is where the kind of Sunday mornings idea arose. And he did, as as you explained, Eric, started to sort of sift through the internet and he was just listening to albums that he liked. And he said, I kept seeing Brian Deck's name show up. He had done Modest Mouse and you know, a bunch of sort of indie albums at this time. So eventually Adam decided that they would do a second set of songs, sort of a companion piece.
00:24:40
Speaker
And he wanted to do something that was different this Sunday mornings concept. He said that He wanted it to be a folk record, but not like an acoustic unplugged kind of approach to it. He said, if you went back and listened to the great folk albums, like Simon and Garfunkel is one that he mentioned. These albums are rooted in acoustic instruments, but they're not like an unplugged session. They're not like, you know, just a single guitar or something like that. They had all this interesting instrumentation and and were very, you know, sort of interesting acoustic albums.
00:25:12
Speaker
And so he also wanted to get away from New York city. They went to Berkeley to his home. He wanted to, he lived with his parents. He wanted to be ah in that, in that vibe again and, and recreate that sort of,
00:25:25
Speaker
early you know period when he was a musician in Berkeley, kind of struggling. And so they recorded it again in the studio in Berkeley, but he he wanted to be there for it.
00:25:35
Speaker
And um working with Brian Deck is kind of interesting because Brian Deck has been the producer of every album since. So obviously they really clicked. They had worked up a lot of these Sunday morning songs in Adam's garden in the in the sort of in his apartment and working with Brian Deck, who was there. ah But Brian Deck's been with Counting Crows since. I mean, he produced Somewhere Under Wonderland um and he produced The Butter Miracle. So ah both both parts of The Butter Miracle. So he's really been obviously an important figure in the band ever since this album. As you mentioned, this was also when they were working with this new lineup, but they did. And we'll talk about this, pull some songs from ah This Desert Life and from Hard Candy. So some of these.
00:26:20
Speaker
So you see Matt Malley appear on this album. You see Ben Mize appear on this album. And some of these songs in some ways were were pulled from these last couple of albums of of the period.
00:26:31
Speaker
um I think so. So I think working in a studio, first of all, and taking that approach gave it a really different feel. Also, this concept of the electric side and the acoustic side was something obviously they've they've done this on like even across a wire was in some ways a similar concept.
00:26:49
Speaker
But for the first time, they sort of made this overt. And he said that Geffen hated this concept. They battled in the whole time. They said, this is a terrible idea. you shouldn't do this.
00:26:59
Speaker
They wanted it to just be at a blend of these things. They wanted to get rid of some of the songs. Geffen hated 1492, wanted to get rid of that. um So he kind of fought with them about the content of the album, the concept of the electric acoustic thing. And then also he really was really wanted to use the Internet in some new ways on this album, distribute the band's music through the Internet. Give away. I think I think he probably want to give the whole album away. um And he fought with Geffen about that, too. And he said, you know, Geffen understood what I wanted to do, but.
00:27:33
Speaker
there's kind of limited in what they can do. They're a giant corporation owned by other giant corporations. And when you go to the giant corporation and say, we'd like to give away the product, the giant corporation says, that's not what we do. We don't want to give away our product. So he really was fighting with Geffen over a lot of aspects of the album. They eventually sort of capitulated on some level. And he said, sort of gave us permission to release the first single for free and as a download.
00:28:00
Speaker
At the time, it seemed maybe crazy to give away music for free or to make it available to people on on streaming. Obviously, now that's that that would be the way to go. But he fought with Geffen a lot over this. And yeah i mean, notice notably the band, they... they ended their their terms with Geffen at the end of this album. This was the last Geffen album that they did. As I recall, the original contract was a three plus three option. So they guaranteed to do three albums and then you they could do more.
00:28:31
Speaker
Adam has never said exactly why it ended. And he said he didn't want to get into it. It was a successful and fruitful relationship for 18 years. But I think Geffen probably dropped them at the end of this album. Partially, it was their first album that didn't go gold or platinum.
00:28:48
Speaker
And um although it hit number three, it was at a time when music sales had gone down a lot. So precipitous yeah number three so it was a high-tarting album for them. But in terms of sales, the music industry had just shifted a lot. It was sort of in between where we are today, where everything is streaming and and the old music business where everything was sold on Yeah.
00:29:10
Speaker
The only other thing I want to mention is that, and we'll get into some of the the the sort of different different different tracks and things like that, but this idea of an a electric side of an album and an acoustic side of an album, certainly this has been done before, and it'd be fun to do a whole, you know, sometime we'll do a whole podcast on music.
00:29:31
Speaker
albums that are like that. But I think the the really famous one that is worth mentioning, because I'm sure that it inspired this idea, i was Bob Dylan's fifth album, Bringing It Back Home, Bringing It All Back Home, which, you know, if you've seen the Bob Dylan movie, if you know Dylan's story, he was an acoustic artist, a folk artist. His four first four albums are complete folk albums with just Bob Dylan and an electric guitar. The occasionally a harmonica. And I mean, truly stripped down and raw. What's amazing about those albums, if you haven't done the dive into them, you really need to, because they' imagine making an acoustic album with just you and a guitar and making it actually interesting. Those albums are great. They're varied. They contain like huge hits, some of the biggest political songs of all time, the times they are changing.
00:30:19
Speaker
um and songs like that, but also like Don't Think Twice It's Alright, the greatest breakup song of all time, arguably. So those first four Dylan albums are amazing in how good they they are for all acoustic albums. But he wanted to change. He wanted to bring in a band. He wanted to start working with electric musicians. And on his album, Bringing It All Back Home, there was an electric side. Side A is electric and side B is acoustic. And so this is where like Subterranean Homesick Blues is on that, opens that album. It's a it's an incredible Dylan album. And after that, of course, he went full on electric with Highway 61 and the rest is history. But I think that was the first concept album from a rock musician.
00:31:02
Speaker
where they had this idea of there's gonna be an electric side very clearly and then the acoustic side very clearly. And I think that concept has been repeated by other artists, but here you see Counting Crows sort of working in the tradition of Dylan and doing doing the same sort of thing. So I think in some ways that makes it interesting. I'll say one more thing, sorry, is that REM wanted to do this same concept with their album, Green.
00:31:27
Speaker
incredible album, one of their great albums of all time. And they wanted to do an electric side and an acoustic side. And originally that was what they were planning to do. What they decided was that the electric songs, which was like Orange Crush, Turn You Inside Out,
00:31:44
Speaker
Pop Song 89, I mean, incredible songs. They thought that those songs were stronger than the acoustic side that they were going to come up with, which is like You Are Everything, The Wrong Child, World Leader Pretend, also great songs. So eventually they scrapped the concept. They didn't do it. they They did mix it up. They mixed in the electric and the acoustic songs. But there have been bands like R.E.M. that aspired to do something like that. And then ultimately gave up the concept. So that's ah that's a little bit of an introduction. And we'll talk about the specifics when we get into it, um get into the album itself.
00:32:19
Speaker
Two asides there, Jeff. One could argue that Don't Think Twice, It's Alright is the best breakup song ever. And and that would be the correct argument. That argument is right. i would certainly say so. Also, acoustic REM is the best REM.
00:32:32
Speaker
And not that I will say. And that's a much more, that's a more controversial opinion and would be a whole side other podcast. But acoustic REM, like if you ever listen, like the REM unplugged and particularly like the second one, it's, it's so good. that I think they're, they're an amazing band, but I think that second REM, like the unplugged versions are Yeah, you'll get no argument from me on either of those. R&M is one of my very favorite bands. i don't know if I could choose between electric and acoustic, but it would be hard to say that Automatic automatic for the People is not their best album, and that's kind of their acoustic album. so
00:33:04
Speaker
um So I have an observation that maybe nobody made, ah which is that the electric acoustic, they kind of did on Recovering the Satellites, which also has 14 songs.
00:33:14
Speaker
And all the harder songs, except for maybe Recovering the Satellites, are on the first seven. And then the last half has Millers, Horse Dreamers, Monkey, Mercury Long December, and Walkaways. so um And then i would have went to Geffen and said, that sold well. So stick it, Geffen. He used Gil Norton. Come on. Yeah, exactly. Which also used Gil Norton. um One last thing, which i yeah always bring up, which is, and then I have one final observation, then we'll go right into the song rankings, which is that I like to look at the writing credits. I always think it tells a little story of where the album or where the band is at the time. ah This one, three other band members besides Adam get writing credits. So no Bryson again, ah no Millard, no Jim.
00:33:56
Speaker
ah But it kind of surprised me. Vickery, Charlie, and Emmy both kind of shared. Basically, they all got four writing credits. I think Charlie got five. And then I'll talk about when we get to the songs, we'll mention which ones are. But that was kind of interesting that Vickery and emory Emmy shared. Because, again, that kind of shows a crossroads, right? Because as we move forward, it ends up Adam and Emmy get more writing credits. And and and in the past, I think this is the only record with Duritz, Gillingham, Emmergluck, which is an interesting...
00:34:26
Speaker
triumorrate and And they have... that i think oh is together. That is the most common... ah other than just Adam. Yes. Duritz, Gillingham, Immergluck is the most common grouping on the record. Oh, yeah. Interestingly. Yep.
00:34:39
Speaker
that That's true. um And then there's the OCD part of me, Jeff, which hates one thing about this album that always happened. This is the kind of thing that I would never say to Adam because he'd be like, what is wrong with you? Who cares? And that's that he wants to have a Saturday night, Sunday mornings.
00:34:55
Speaker
And But the Saturday side is only six and the other side is eight. And then Come Around, which is on the Sunday morning. Like clearly he just wanted Come Around to be the last song.
00:35:06
Speaker
It was probably supposed to be the last song of Saturday nights because it was also a Norton track. And then it would have been exactly 7-7. But he moved it to side two saying, I need to end with Come Around.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool. But it's also it's very obviously, i mean, we'll get, we wait, yeah let's save it for that song. But we could talk a lot about that song and and the versions of it. And anyway, the other thing on the writing is that, again, per tradition, Adam writes 100 percent of the lyrics. So when we're talking about co-writes, it's always a musical co-write music. I noticed that on Los Angeles, he gave music and lyric credit.
00:35:45
Speaker
to to the other writers, to Ryan Adams and Dave Gibbs. so That's true. This may be the only Counting Crows album where anyone has a lyric credit other than Adam.
00:35:55
Speaker
I could be wrong, but I don't know of any other song where he's not credited as the sole lyricist.
Song Rankings and Discussions
00:36:02
Speaker
So, Chris, if it was me and I was on Geffen, I have said I love the album, but especially when we finally released release vinyl, you know, and once and then so we got to move. if you're going to keep coming around on part B, then you got to move one of the other deck albums or deck songs to ah the Saturday Night side. But OK, so that was just me and the seven plus seven, six plus eight. Let's go to the song. So here we go. So four of us, Chris and I and Jeff and Ryan, And we had Paul come in as a tiebreaker on a couple. And speaking of tiebreakers, it started with a tiebreaker. In fact, actually, well, I'll just say, okay. So the in we're going go from 14 to one. So tied for the quote unquote lowest ranking song in this. And again, this is like my children. I love all of them equally, although, you know, but yeah. But some songs have to be ranked higher than others.
00:36:50
Speaker
So, um, which, okay, so tied for 14 or 13 would be Tuesday in Amsterdam and Anyone But You. And ah both of those were ranked consistently low for most people. Chris had Tuesday in Amsterdam a little higher, a medium song, and I had um Anyone But You a little higher. And in fact, Tuesday in Amsterdam, I waffled Chris. That was That definitely jumped up a couple spots for me at one. I think it was maybe the lowest when the album first got released, and now I like it more.
00:37:23
Speaker
um And in fact, I'm going to give a little tribute before we, because the tiebreaker going to Paul, and we'll talk to more about when we get to In One With You, he clearly thought Anyone But You was a little better. He thinks that's the best song on the second half of the album. Interesting.
00:37:37
Speaker
ah So because most of us had that pretty low and Paul thought that was the best song in the second half. So let's start with Tuesday in Amsterdam. Does anybody have any comment? Jeff and Ryan had it their lowest. Again, ah Chris and I had it a little higher. I'll go with anybody who wants to give a comment.
00:37:53
Speaker
I'll start just a couple of things I think is as interesting about this. um This is a song that dates to about 2004. Adam played it solo on piano, not long after it was written um at a show, I believe it's actually in Rotterdam. um But there is a good there was a a very good recording of this that existed. So this song we'd sort of known of for a while.
00:38:14
Speaker
um There's an interesting story to it, which is that Adam says that um he had just written Accidentally in Love. And this song is the sort of other side to that, that it's about the relationship and accidentally in love in the future, looking backwards at today.
00:38:33
Speaker
um Very Adam Durant, right? Yeah. It's perfect. It's like, I am going to remember what this is feeling is like and write a song about that. um And I think it's, I just think it's a ah beautiful song. I think it's, um,
00:38:46
Speaker
that That piano, the way it kind of hangs, I think is really, really lovely. um Incredibly rare song, by the way, live. um I believe this is um other than Anyone But You, which has never been played live. This is the least played song on the record. um But it's, i think, just, I don't know, a beautiful song. That's what kind of got it up there for me. I'm not sure if I connect... yeah super strongly emotionally to it. Maybe it's maybe part of the problem. I had it, I had it at number nine. Um, but I really, I just think it's, i don't, it's just a yeah beautiful piece of music. I always like Adam on a piano by himself. There's just something about it that I, and I believe I'm sure Charlie probably plays it, but, Again, I always think of the original version, which was Adam on piano. That's it, Charlie. yeah Yeah, it's funny, ah Jeff. We didn't say yet. Might as well say it now that online, and I can put the link, um the the same guy, Chris, that records all the Cat and Crows concerts and stuff. Now i'm forgetting his name. The photographer. ah
00:39:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Or SPG Studios, one of one of that group. There's like five recordings of them recording in the studio, all of them great online. And one of them was Tuesday in Amsterdam. And Jeff, you mentioned actually, I don't know if it was on or off the record, but a month ago you said, geez, they don't play much from this, that you know, kind of forgotten by the Crows in concert live nowadays. And I went and checked and not only did Chris say it's true, but they've actually played Somewhere Under Wonderland, like songs from that 50% more than any song from here, despite being released about a decade later. So, um and by the way, Butter Miracle is has almost caught up to cat to Saturday night, Sunday morning. So what you say is true on that. um as I do want to give one shout out. Now, I never is super connected to this as much. I've seen some people online say that this might have to do with Gemma Hayes. Is that pronounce right at the time?
00:40:34
Speaker
I'm not sure if they ever dated or if they were friends. it I actually don't think... I hate to speculate this up. I don't think so. I think this is later, based on the sort of timings, because I think this is...
00:40:48
Speaker
yeah i And I think part of that was just because there's a couple references, despite being a Tuesday in Amsterdam, a couple of references to Ireland. So maybe that's why maybe people have said that. I never felt that way either. But I do want to note that people that like the recurring themes of Adam Duritz in his lyrics get a lot of it here.
00:41:07
Speaker
um which is gray is mentioned and the winter. so you can think of long December. i won't comment about someone, a woman being a bareback rider. I'll try to move on from that. But um then we get carnival in the, in the, again, about being strung on a wire.
00:41:22
Speaker
We got memory in there, fading, fading in the air. Um, And then, right, Girl on the Wire, tumbling. and And so I have to admit, part of the reason maybe it moved up another spot is that I was in Dublin for for months a couple years ago. I didn't know what Stevens Green was 10 years ago. And I guess it's basically what the Central Park of Dublin, at least I hope I'm not... um which I just didn't know. And then the only other thing I'll say about it is I do think the part, I do think that the that the chorus isn't maybe the you know the best I can see. Maybe that's why some people don't love it to come back to me.
00:41:58
Speaker
But I do think the the verse of when everything's over and everything's clear, when everyone's older and no one is here, given you know that this is the fifth album of the Crows and Adam was about 45 at the time, that that that hits to me a lot even now, right? Because I'm...
00:42:14
Speaker
20 years older now than when the album first got released. So I don't know if Jeff or Ryan, you have any thoughts? Well, the only thing I was going to add is that I think Accidentally in Love, the story of that song is that Adam had basically written the song by himself and then felt like he wanted the band to come in and help him out. And so they finished that song in a hotel room in Amsterdam. Like,
00:42:39
Speaker
That's when the band came in and joined him. And I think, Chris, that you might have said this before. I think this song was written that same week when he was in Amsterdam. This was so an Adam solo write. But um I think that this was written right at the same time that Accidentally in Love was was finished. And so it would make sense that there's a connection between the two because they were being written basically at the same time.
00:43:04
Speaker
um Brian, it's OK if you don't have any thoughts on Tuesday or do you? Yeah, this one, i mean, it's it's like you were saying about loving all your children. i mean, there there are no skips on this album for me. i will i will listen all the way through to this one, this whole record and and just love it.
00:43:20
Speaker
But as I sat down to do this thought exercise, ah it just it just pretty quickly and naturally settled to the bottom for me. Again, not that I don't like the song. It is a beautiful song as as everybody's ah detailed But but yeah, it just didn't.
00:43:34
Speaker
It just isn't above any of the others on on this record for me. Yeah, make makes sense. Paul, so you had ah anyone but you because we're going to move to that song now, number 13 in the official rankings that can never be changed.
00:43:49
Speaker
ah but You had Anyone But You as the favorite song in the second half. Any any thoughts or about why that? but I just yeah felt I could relate to it. I felt it got a nice tune to it. And um I think that's one of the main reasons why I chose it.
00:44:07
Speaker
Makes sense. I don't have much to say except that I always thought this was... I had it as... ah So Anyone But You, Everyone Had It Their Bottom Three. I had it actually... um Kind of in the middle, I guess. Well, 11. So, okay. That was anyway, four or five on my list. I will say though, I think I said this once it's on the podcast before this was the song. Cause I like texted Jeff and Chris the other day. Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm entering the plane and, and what was it?
00:44:33
Speaker
Accidentally love was playing or big yellow taxi. I forget one of the accidentally love, I think, but this was the strangest one I've heard a public place, which was like at a supermarket, uh, It was like Friday night, like 1030 at night and some big supermarket in Madison, Wisconsin. And they were playing anyone but you on the music or whatever. And I'm like, Hey, the crows, they still got it. Um, there was a guy DJing in the back of the store who was not doing. Okay. He was playing this whole record. I'm going to cry here over some potatoes. And I don't have much to, I just, I just think it's an underrated. And I want to hear this song live. And if I get a chance, I do want to, uh,
00:45:12
Speaker
I almost don't want to say it on the podcast in case anyone's listening, but I did want to ask like if Emmy and Adam, I have a feeling they might not know, like what song do we think on all of your major major albums that you've never played? And we think that this is the only song they've never played live from any the major albums. Of the original rights. Yeah, I think it's in in any way, not even a piece of it, right? It's not even like you know Miller's Angels...
00:45:34
Speaker
I think it only got played like once, but obviously they've used chunks of it and different things. and yeah i It's a really interesting song. um The intro really reminded me of Catapult. um And then ah there's some like imagery of sinking, which made me kind of think of Rain King.
00:45:51
Speaker
um I like the harmonies on it a lot. like I think the singing on it is really good, and and it has that... um you talk about like, ah interestingly, this is not on the Gil Norton side of the record, but it has the sort of Beatles-y energy that some of Recovering the Satellites has where...
00:46:08
Speaker
the the sort of way they're layering harmonies and sounds um makes me think of, again, the you know the way the way those guys go towards the Beatles. um Again, I think, I wonder if like part of the reason i don't have it as high is because it's never been played live. um And so my relationship to it is you know less in a certain way than some of these other songs. It just doesn't,
00:46:35
Speaker
the the band didn't kind of think to to bring it out, um which i I don't know. It's and it's interesting to me that they that this one is the least... And again, i mean, on a Tuesday in Amsterdam, it's only been played eight times, right? So this is not it's not exactly big hit territory, but... um Yeah, more than this one. Fun fact, according to setless.fm, I've been at at one quarter of the times they played on a Tuesday in Amsterdam long ago. That's pretty good. One quarter, twice in 2008.
00:47:05
Speaker
Now, Jeff is going to disagree with me because I know he loved this song. And I guess Chris wouldn't. there's there's ah There's like three or four songs in here that I think are almost like spiritual successor to other songs. And I actually feel this is a spiritual successor to Good Time.
00:47:18
Speaker
um I know it doesn't maybe have the bluesy, musically thing, but this is a song I could, if there was a video, i can almost like picture them just like hanging out in a lounge playing. And I felt that way about good time, like almost like the I don't know. And it still has some Durets lyrics like ah i'm almost perfect some of the time. I mean, that is definitely, at least in my opinion, a Durets 2008 lyric. So any yeah anybody else any comments on this song? If not, we'll move on to the number 12 song.
00:47:48
Speaker
Well, I was just going to add, one thing is that the quote-unquote brass on this song was actually played by Adam on the synthesizer. It wasn't obviously real horns. oh And then also, fun fact about this album, Adam does not play any piano on this album, which was another first until Laura Carly, which is quite interesting because Adam plays on like Mrs. Potter's Lullaby and some of your favorite Counting Crows songs. He's the guy on piano. And on this album, I think this had to be the first time he didn't He didn't touch a piano the whole time he was in the studio. So that's interesting, too. I have no idea if that has anything to do with why they might play or not play these songs, but it's a different another another way that this album, they kind of approached it differently than the than the previous four.
00:48:36
Speaker
Okay. So we will move. So, oh, there's going to four tiers of songs. So this is coming up number 12 on the list. So it's the last song of the quote unquote bottom quadrant, I guess. There's three songs that consistently lower than the other ones. And the the other one being ah number 12, Sunday Morning.
00:48:55
Speaker
ah or um officially, what is it, on almost any Sunday morning. Oh, by the way, Jeff, we didn't even mention that Saturday night, Sunday mornings has a reference to, what? There's two Saturday references, but they're on the Sunday morning side.
00:49:10
Speaker
Almost any Sunday morning is on this. Oh, sorry. The Saturday. no. Am I getting that wrong now? There's Sundays is on. on Sundays is on the Saturday. board and Yeah. Well, but he doesn't believe in Sundays. And Saturday nights doesn't believe in Sundays.
00:49:25
Speaker
but That's why. And almost any Sunday morning is about going out on Saturday night and feeling pretty crappy. on Sunday morning. and then one of the bonus track references is, one of the bonus tracks is, does it have a Saturday, it's a Saturday or Sunday? It's a Saturday, right?
00:49:40
Speaker
Oh, now I'm forgetting. Sunday morning LA. Sunday morning LA. Right. So there's three Sundays, as many Saturdays. Yeah, right. It's a weekend record, although other than on a Tuesday in Amsterdam long ago, which is on a Tuesday. We're here doing, we could only do this podcast on a Sunday, the way. We are doing this on a Sunday. Contractually obligated.
00:50:02
Speaker
Yeah. um um I had this song the highest. I went up to a club until 6 in the morning last night just to get ready for this. Just in Milan, right? The emotional position. you know So I had the song the highest. i don't really have too much to say about it, though. I think I could see why people have it lower. um I just think for this kind of – I guess acoustic type of song. I just think it's great to me. It's like the ultimate hangover depression song of regret that, that if you're like have that bad headache and you can't get out of your bed and you're trying to think about, um you know, the hangover from whatever happened during Cowboys or 1492 or whatever you decided to do um that you might want to play um on almost any Sunday morning. And I kind of think this is the song I think of when I think, when I see the album cover,
00:50:51
Speaker
Right. Of the of the the raindrops in the Empire State Building. To me, that's that right. There we go. Paul's got it on video. To me, that's from Sunday morning, waking up at two o'clock in the afternoon and taking a photo. And that's what it looks like.
00:51:04
Speaker
But anyway, I really like the song. It just is. So what did I have it? One, two, three, four, five. say I had it like number nine. there's I just think there's a better song. So, yeah. Anybody else comments on this song?
00:51:16
Speaker
I mean, again, it's a it's a lovely song. and i do think in some ways this does fit with the ah emotional energy of Saturday more. sarah yeah that It's sort of an interesting in that regard, in that that it ah in the sort of arc of the record. I know Adam sort of explained it as sort of the like the the record has an arc, but it's not clean because the whole idea is that like like falling in recovery is not a clean process. um but But just energy-wise, it sort of hit me there. um It is an interesting... ah it's an interesting he they They played this, um again, very, very few times. 21 total, but a couple times. in
00:51:55
Speaker
Although one of them is clearly wrong. I was actually looking them like, that's a weird setlist. I'm like, oh, this is that thing where people put fake setlists on setlist.fm. um the yeah The interesting thing, one of the the last times they played this in 08 and the last time they played on Tuesday in Amsterdam, I actually listened to this this morning. They played this whole record, other than anyone but you,
00:52:16
Speaker
at a show on the the tour in 2008. This was a show at a casino somewhere in Minnesota, which is the ballsiest thing and i think I've ever seen a band do. They went out and played the entire record to a... a a room of people in a casino, then close the main set with long December and on chord with Mr. Jones. And that's just like, what a, what a wild and amazing thing to do. And that's why I, it's again, it's one of the reasons I love 2008 as a period for the band. They were just like, like coming up with different ways to do things constantly. And that is like, again, just one of the ballsiest things I've i've ever heard of. And amazing.
00:53:01
Speaker
Bravo. Yeah. And those 2008 shows are amazing. I mean, you can see many of them online. One thing, and I i guess I forgot to mention this in the history, was that Adam it kind of decided that he wanted to get in really good shape again. And so he had gained all this weight from his medications at this kind of Brian Wilson period, as he described it, where he didn't get out of bed for months. But then he he started boxing and running and getting, you know, he got into really good shape. If you look at the shows from 2008, he looks amazing. um and and And those shows are really, you know, some of their most powerful shows, I think. And this material, which you don't get to see very often, it was really showcased a lot during that time.
00:53:47
Speaker
The only other thing I wanted to mention, is that the song Sunday Morning Coming Down, I think we have to talk about that at least a little bit when we talk about this Sunday morning concept, because Sunday Morning Coming Down, if you don't know, is one of the greatest country songs ever written. It was written by Chris Christopherson and made famous by Johnny Cash.
00:54:09
Speaker
think it was 1969. It's been around a long time. But the opening line of that song could have been written by Adam Duritz. It's well, I woke up on Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt, which is, that's an incredible line, one of the greatest opening lines of a song, um and also a line that I think could have been written by Adam Duritz.
00:54:29
Speaker
um And so I think that when you're talking about Sunday morning coming down, it really is about this idea of waking up on Sunday morning and feeling kind of hungover. Adam said the Sunday morning ah side of this album was not really about redemption or like finding himself. It was about, you know, what happens after everything has fallen apart. And and and and so I think that that That song, you know, somehow must have been somewhere, you know, in there in in his wheelhouse when he was sort of thinking about what this album would mean. So I just somewhere in this show, I felt like we needed to mention Sunday Morning Coming Down. If you haven't heard it, go listen to that song. It's an amazing performance by Johnny Cash.
00:55:13
Speaker
And before we get to Quad 3, at least I'll plug when you were talking about the performances at this time. um We mentioned this before, Chris, on the show, but on the internet, the interwebs on YouTube is the basically the entire album, except for a few songs missing, the 2008 soundstage in Chicago. And I think it's an amazing performance. I'm glad it's still there. i watch it every couple of months, I have to be honest. yeah Because you just don't see those songs live. And and it's so good. yeah um The yeah, and I do to say for anybody and forget about the drinking part, but for anybody that which is all of us that goes to bed and then you kind of wake up in the morning and whatever the problem is in your life is still there. And you almost for a second think it's going to be better when you wake up. But it's not, you know, in that line, but it all keeps coming back in the morning always kind of hits me a bit. So, OK.
00:56:07
Speaker
Let's move to the third quad. So this is quite ah quite a gap in our rankings between number 12 and number 11, which was ironic because they both deal with Sunday and the song would be Sundays, which we all kind of placed um moderate to low, except for Ryan had this as his sixth highest. So let's start with Ryan, who ranked Sundays high.
00:56:32
Speaker
i Yeah, I've always loved this song. it just it just hit with me right away. um i don't i i definitely, when i when I got through with this list, um which is, you know, it's it's so fun to get to do this with you guys, but it it was also kind of the unexpected bonus was, like, I've never really done this for myself. Like, oh, how would I rank the songs on this album? And yeah,
00:56:57
Speaker
For me, it became very clear that with a couple of exceptions, I really like the Saturday night side of this album more than the Sunday morning. Not that I don't like the Sunday morning side. i mean, ah on almost any Sunday morning that we were just talking about, is it just absolutely beautiful song.
00:57:14
Speaker
But yeah, Sundays, it's just, it's got a groove to it for me. It's, i I just enjoy it. It's just a fun song. I don't think I've ever heard them perform it in the,
00:57:24
Speaker
I don't know how many couple dozen shows I've been to and over the course of my Counting Crows concert career. But yeah, i don't I don't necessarily have anything specific to point to with this other than it it just, I thought it it fits really well with this more upbeat Saturday Night Side. And I've just always enjoyed this song. So yeah, it's ah that that's probably the most I can say about it.
00:57:49
Speaker
Uh, the only thing I'll add that I'll move along. I had this, did I have this to lowest? Uh, no, Chris and I had it both fairly low. This is one that also moved up for me. I probably would have had it second or third. Yeah. This and a Tuesday in Amsterdam moved up the most since the album got released. The other ones kind of stayed the same over 20 years.
00:58:06
Speaker
Um, I just thought that it was, I don't know, a better song than i realized when I first heard it. I do want to note though, that, um, that, um oh, Kyle Meredith, who was on four episodes ago, that when he had Adam on recently, one reason, as I said, I loved him on is he got into a couple deep divey things, including bringing up this album and basically saying, oh, you don't play this album enough. And kind of like we said, you don't play it a lot anymore. The only kind of song that came up specifically, Adam randomly mentioned Sundays and said, oh, I'd love to play Sundays more or sing Sundays more, but I can't.
00:58:41
Speaker
I don't do this one because I can't hit the high notes as much. And I guess it's at the end of the song he's saying he can't hit that or he doesn't want to or strange. So that was the one. It was random because I thought he might bring up insignificant or hanging to one of the harder ones. But he brought up this one. So, um Chris, any thoughts on on Sundays? Yeah, I will say generally in ranking this is interesting to me that as we're hitting these tiers, in part because really,
00:59:05
Speaker
really struggled to rank this record. I think I had this one 12th, but I also don't think it's any really, really worse than on almost, you know, I mean, it's it's like, I found this record was very consistent in that I liked sort of,
00:59:22
Speaker
Every second of it, there were no skips, but at the same time, there weren't a couple of songs where I was like those are that's the one. that's So it was kind of an interesting experience in that regard. This was kind of one that's, i've I don't know, I've always liked it, and it just hasn't like hit me as hard. I think it's it's a tricky song in concert, too, just because I think it's as a it has a unique kind of tempo to it that... um I'm not sure. it like It's neither very slow nor very, it kind of sits in sort of a weird middle. um
00:59:52
Speaker
But it's an interesting song. This is one, by the way, that I'll note goes back to This Desert Life. This was originally um from those sessions. Producer credits go to David Lowery and ah Dennis Herring. So it's interesting because you can hear that that sort of jangle and how it might fit into sonically that This Desert Life record.
01:00:14
Speaker
Yeah, if I remember, David only kind of half remembered recording it. mean, he did, but kind of. But I was just about to say, Jeff, maybe you were going to say the same thing, that at least you can feel it, that it could fit in the desert life. Unlike 1492, I cannot believe that they recorded that as part of the Heart Candy outtakes. That I do not get. Because the whole thing of Heart Candy was like these pop songs, like Beatles kind of. And 1492 is the most unpoppy, probably, of all of the Candy Crush songs ever. But ah Jeff, any comments about Sundays?
01:00:43
Speaker
Yeah, I love this one, too. Like Ryan, I think that I like the Saturday nights part of this album better than the Sunday mornings part of the album.
01:00:54
Speaker
um And like Chris, I had a really hard time ranking the songs because with the exception of the first three that we talked about, i really, really like every song on this album a lot.
01:01:05
Speaker
And Sundays is high for me. I think one of the reasons I've always liked it is that it does remind me of This Desert Life. It was you know produced from that in that same studio with that same band. We got Matt Malley, my my guy on bass.
01:01:21
Speaker
I'm a big Matt Manley fan. I think he always just, I love his bass playing. And this is the one track on this album that he's he's actually on this track. Interestingly though, Ben Mize and Jim both play drums on this track. So who knows what sort of studio wizardry came together to have both of those guys on this album, both playing drums. But yeah,
01:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, I love Sundays. I mean, it um i guess i I had other songs that I liked better, but um this for me is is ah a big thumbs up. It's definitely not a skipped song. I love it. I think it's great.
01:01:58
Speaker
You know what's interesting about that, Jeff? It makes me wonder, like, if Sundays was on The Desert Life, which sold a lot more albums, like, would it be a regular, like a concert, not a mainstay, but would it be played as often as, like, I Wish I Was a Girl, right? I don't think it's that. It's probably more poppy than Wish I Was a Girl. I kind of think it would be played more if it was released with that.
01:02:19
Speaker
but I think they should have put this on that album instead of Kid Things. I really do. I think that this is so much stronger. for sure. Yeah. And if you didn't have a hidden track, you know, like this, this one would have been a great hidden track on there.
01:02:33
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I guess i yeah I would like to see part of the regular tracks, but I get what you're saying. Definitely more people would know about it, for sure. So next on the list is Not Surprising. And the reason I'm saying Not Surprising is because I think there's a couple songs on here which can be like grouped with each other. And one of them, for sure, because they stand out on the Saturday morning side, is Sundays and Los Angeles.
01:02:56
Speaker
And they were basically got similar rankings. what they Which one's first? Yeah, Los Angeles first, then Sundays. um All of us had this in the middle. Oh, I had it second lowest, I have to say. The rest of you had it medium. So let's get in. I just don't yeah love it. But who had it the highest? We'll give them first. Chris, Chris, you had it as your number six. I just i kind of just love the energy of this song. The more I listen to the lyrics, it's wonderful.
01:03:23
Speaker
it's kind of an odd song. It's kind of an, you can sort of hear, um, in the lyrics. Um, you know, one of the things that struck me when I read Jeff's book, you know, Jeff kind of takes a lot of work and bringing a lot of the reviews and the way people are talking about Adam, especially in the late nineties and early two thousands. And you can kind of hear in this song, sort of Adam's reaction to the way he was getting spoken about, you know, you know, you see me, um, if you, if you see me,
01:03:53
Speaker
on the movie screen or with a, with a, if you, oh, if you see me with ah a bad picture in a magazine, sorry, I'm blowing the lyrics here, but um it's an interesting, it's kind of ah a sort of a snide song, but it's also super fun. um It's essentially about, you know, him and Ryan Adams and Dave Gibbs going out and getting drunk in LA. that's why the sort of the structure of the song each of them has a verse right in terms of the writing credits ryan's is the first one he comes from nashville adams is san francisco is the second verse the bridge is dave gibbs from boston um and i don't know there's just something charming about the sort of the hook to this song that i've just always really liked um even if sort of i again i can't sort of relate to it in a certain way um
01:04:42
Speaker
It's a, and I also just, I do as a New Yorker, i have also gone walking in Los Angeles and it's a pretty weird thing to do. Um, the, the songwriter Jesse Malin always talks about like, as a New Yorker, he would go walking in Los Angeles and people thought he was a prostitute, you know, cause it's just like who goes walking. Um,
01:05:00
Speaker
Missing persons. Missing persons, you know, but it's, and Adam is right. It is a really good place to find yourself a taco. That's true. I actually, once the first time I went to LA, Ryan Adams had written a thing about the best burrito, his favorite burrito or something in LA. It was delicious.
01:05:15
Speaker
Los Burritos in Hollywood. If you're at staying at the Roosevelt, which you should, because that's a pretty fun old LA. um Go, go hit Los Burritos. If it's still there, it's been a long time since I've been to LA. Oh, yeah. I mean, the LA people like to think they have great food, but compared to New York, not really, except for the Mexican food, of course. That that the New York can't touch. New York is also a really good place to find yourself a taco as well. um I will say, by the way, the fun thing about this song, there is a version that exists that I think is from the Hard Candy Sessions that someone had sent me sometime in 2007. And seven that I found um this morning when I was like going through stuff that is like a full minute longer.
01:05:52
Speaker
And it's in in all of that minute is in the back half of the song. After Adam says streetwalking, he says streetwalking a few more times. And then he talks about having a margarita and a vodka tonic and some champagne and maybe grabbing something from behind the bar. Um, and he ends it with a really good place to find yourself a taco. So that's a a fun sort of thing that exists somewhere in the internet land. I don't know. have like literally one of those things where I'm like, I found it on old hard drive. I'm like, someone must've sent this to me. I don't know. But, um,
01:06:21
Speaker
Anyway, I like the song and I see at number six. But again, I understand why someone might have had it at number 12. There's what's between six and 12. It's all kind of. yeah Or 13 in my case. Paul, I forgot to mention, though, I forgot how high you had Sundays. So, yeah again, these are kind of together. i still put Los Angeles as slightly higher ranking. Do you have any thoughts on Sundays? Do you do you remember that one?
01:06:42
Speaker
and Not necessarily? Not necessarily. Okay. I just remember you saying that that you thought that was actually one of the better, catchier songs from the album. Anybody other thoughts? I can certainly say that I i find Saturday nights
01:07:00
Speaker
more catchy and uplifting and... and easy to listen to. Why is Sunday mornings you need to dedicate time and look into the lyrics and so on.
01:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and in the and the the all three songs from Quadrant 4 or whatever were from Sunday morning, so that that kind of... I definitely noticed that theme when people were ranking. but yeah I think it's part of the thing that works with this song is its placement on the record, right? Coming after like Hanging Tree in 1492, it is much lighter. And like like it's sort of a breath of fresh air in that moment where you're like, oh, okay, now we're going to go, okay, I know things are real bad, but we're going to go try and make some friends and have some tacos. um Feels like a nice sentiment at that point in the record.
01:07:48
Speaker
Jeff, any comments on Los Angeles, different from Goodnight l LA? um Yeah, quite quite different. but We have LA and Goodnight LA, right? so Yeah, right.
01:07:59
Speaker
Well, um yeah, I mean, I like this song a lot too. I think um the only thing I would add is this was... as we've mentioned, ah an outtake from Hard Candy, but it was, it seems like it was rerecorded for Los Angeles, um at least partially, but Ben Mize is on drums, but you have Millard on bass.
01:08:21
Speaker
I think Millard actually does a great job on the bass here. And the only thing I would add is I think that that whole ending where Adam is talking about going street walking and all that kind of stuff, I think, yeah,
01:08:34
Speaker
To me, that was clearly influenced by the Rolling Stones. You can really hear him. He's kind of doing a Mick Jagger at the end of that song. And um I think you really hear the I think actually you hear a lot influence influencer Rolling Stones on this album. And I think that particular part where Adam is kind of talking at the end of Los Angeles, to me, it's like he is I think he's even said this in interviews, but he's clearly doing a Mick Jagger at the end of that. And so I like it, too. I think it's a fun song. I had it ranked number nine, but, you know, again, the rankings on this album, like I just like most of the songs. And so it's a bit arbitrary to have it at nine. But yeah, another another winner in my book, for sure.
01:09:16
Speaker
Ryan, any thoughts? Yeah, I do. Yeah, this one. It's funny you said that this kind of this and so and and Sundays. I had Sundays six and this seven. And really, i love them both. The reason that i gave the nod to Sundays over this is I actually don't like the that very end of the song where about, you know, it's a really good place to find yourself a taco. I just, I don't know. For it for some reason, it just kind of pulled pulled me out of it for for whatever reason. so But I love the rest of the song so much. I love ah the harmonies throughout this song are great. I mean, I live in San Francisco, so certainly Adam's San Francisco verse.
01:09:57
Speaker
hits extra hard for me. And yeah, it's just, it does. It's got a ah great kind of, I think it was Jeff that said it's got a great vibe to it, um which I know is not like a scientific term or analysis for
Washington Square and Other Songs
01:10:11
Speaker
for music. But yeah, I've always loved this song minus the the last five seconds.
01:10:17
Speaker
Despite me putting it on the second lowest, I was – you know in the Hollywood show, The Troubadour? I was hoping this would bust out. Like, you know, either Elvis in Hollywood or Los Angeles. i thought it would have been a fun, you know, song to play. Maybe someday they will throw a – played since 2018.
01:10:35
Speaker
right Yeah. I think that was the last one for some reason. Tragic. I have not been played in a long time. Okay, so two more for Quadrant 3 and until we get to our halftime.
01:10:47
Speaker
ah So um here we go. So a song next up on the list, number nine, a song that is played quite a bit. And the first song in here that is played frequently in concert, which then kind of surprised me. The person that had this highest on the list was Jeff, Lois Ryan, Chris and I in the middle.
01:11:08
Speaker
Ironic because we both lived in New York City. This is Washington Square. Let's start with, who did I say how to hiya? Jeff, let's go with you. Hiya, yeah, number six for me. I think partially i love this song. I think this is the song that to me succeeds where some of those other songs like On a Tuesday and Amsterdam and whatnot, Don't quite make it. i think Washington Square achieves what Adam was going for with the Sunday Mornings album.
01:11:40
Speaker
For me, I think it's just a beautiful song. um I think more than anything, what I would say is this is a song that i didn't really appreciate until I saw them do it live. And obviously they do it live a lot.
01:11:54
Speaker
ah But when the first time I saw them do this song live, that's where I went, oh, okay. Now, I was on board from that moment on. I like got it as soon as I saw him do it live and realized, i don't know, whatever it was that they bring to this song.
01:12:12
Speaker
Seeing them do it live sort of solidified it for me. So I think this is one of the better songs on Sunday mornings. I love how... sort of quiet it is and yet very powerful too. And so, yeah, I just think it's a, I think it's a real achievement on this album. I think it stands out on that Sunday morning side. Thanks Jeff. I'm i' just, even though I had it slight, Oh no, had it.
01:12:37
Speaker
Oh, I had it basically the same as you. i had it one spot down. I agree with every single... um I just disagree with you so what you say. I guess everything here up... I guess the top seven songs... Yeah, so I had this top seven. I think are all kind of, quote-unquote, perfect. Just some are better than the others. And so, yeah, I think it's great. Chris, isn't this the one where... What is it? That Jim plays on the book a little bit, right? No, he plays... In this one, he plays this, like, one big...
01:13:05
Speaker
drum kind of thing. um i'll We'll get to the book one later. yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, they know but so yeah, it's it is an interesting, and I really love, um in this song, I really love the harmonica solo. I think Charlie's always of loved hearing that.
01:13:17
Speaker
I kind of wonder, you know, i was as I was ranking this, I mean, I i really like the song. i used to live near there. i love Washington Square. So do I. I wonder if if in relative terms, if this song has almost like suffered as as a New Yorker, they play the song a lot in the New York area because they're, yeah Adam always talks about it. It's a song about leaving home. It's a song about coming home. and song about my home, Washington Square. um But the fact that I could, I just did that off the top of my head. I've i've seen him say that a lot. And I like the song, but I wonder if um relative to some of the other ones that are,
01:13:52
Speaker
um it feel fresher to me. Um, if this one just, and I didn't have a port. I mean, I think I at had it ninth. Um, it's a great song. I just didn't, um, maybe I've just sort of emotionally.
01:14:04
Speaker
don't know. Oh yeah. no the the lyrics are great. I'm not even going to dissect them. We'll do that. Another show, Ryan, uh, we'll go to you. Yeah, this one, i mean, I will kind of kind of echo Chris a little bit. Like, i I do love this song. I think I had it in terms of the Sunday morning side of things.
01:14:21
Speaker
This was, let's see, I guess number four, on but really number three, because one of them's come around, which i which I have higher than this in terms of the Sunday morning side. yeah But I would say, and it's it's ah two things. One, it's a great song.
01:14:38
Speaker
I think it is the perfect way to open the Sunday morning side after you've just gotten through, ah well, Cowboys was the the song before this. you know it's a great It's a great flip to to side B, if you will.
01:14:51
Speaker
And then the other thing I would add, again, kind of, ah I'm not sure if this is exactly what what you were saying, Chris, but I i love this album so much. i I don't want to hear this song in concert anymore because I want to hear other songs from this album. Like it's nothing against Washington square at all. It's just like, okay, if, if I'm, if I'm going to get one, maybe two Saturday nights and Sunday morning songs per show,
01:15:18
Speaker
Can one of them not be this one, please? Like, ah I'd just love to hear some of the other stuff that I haven't heard. Because I've definitely, again, I'm not as quite as meticulous about my setlist FM history as you guys. But I know I've heard this song played live.
01:15:36
Speaker
more times than I can count at this point. So that's, so I kind of have a, it's a beautiful song. I love it, but in concert, I'm i'm kind of done with it, but on the album, it's beautiful. Yeah. This is the most played song on this record, almost 300 times.
01:15:50
Speaker
um And it's a hundred more than the closest when that, which is is Michelangelo is number two, but, um So it's really, in terms of songs from this record they've played, it's a lot more than the others. Like, we're not hallucinating that, apparently. um Because it was, a I mean, for a long time, then they opened a lot of encores with that song. um yeah It's a great song. It's just, i think, again, there there's, relative to some of the other ones, it's it has sort of an outsized, because it's not like it was the hit or something like that, and they feel they have to play it for whatever reason. This song they've gone back to just significantly more at the rest of the record.
01:16:25
Speaker
All right. One more song to get into to the quote unquote bottom half of the album. And by the way, Jeff, neither of us mentioned that that with um going back to Los Angeles, that that was the sequel, ah right, of the that the of the Ryan Adams co-written pieces, right? He had Butterfly in reverse and then this one and then nothing since then, right? Entering Bell also, of course.
01:16:51
Speaker
oh answer bell i Sorry, I meant on the Crows albums, but yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. um Okay, so the last one in this group, and to be honest, it this was close to making Quad 2.
01:17:03
Speaker
Let me see where... Paul had it. Yeah, but you Paul had it pretty low because it was like borderline and Paul's like, definitely knock it down a bit, which is the only, in my opinion, real single from the album, You Can't Count On Me. The catchy song that they also don't really play anymore, right, Chris? Another like single that's lost, kind of like American Girls. Gone.
01:17:26
Speaker
yeah I want to make a point, too, that I think, and someone could correct me if I'm wrong, which I always get kind of sad about this, almost makes me want to cry, that this is the last, what I would call, traditional
01:17:42
Speaker
music video that features Adam. Now, they do have traditional videos, even I would argue the the Butter Miracle suite, right, where they did the 15-minute song, and they did a couple of real, quote-unquote, real videos for Somewhere in the Wonderland, but none of them have the band in it at all.
01:17:59
Speaker
And I'm not counting the ones from the most recent where it's just Adam, you know, the close-up in his home, I guess, right? singing. So yeah, this one is, you know, like a sign of that age, right? Him arguing with his quote unquote girlfriend and saying, you can't count on me.
01:18:17
Speaker
um And yeah, and then a lot of, you know, I always go, because if you go to the ah the comments on that song, there are, just like American girls, there are a lot of non- hardcore Crows fans that know this song because it was a single or video. And then they'll comment like, oh, I love this, you know, American Girls from the summer of whatever. And then this one, it's like, I always thought it was you can count on me. I can't believe it until I watch the video. Right, Chris? Which is, that you know, it's funny there because I always think this song is in certain ways a little bit similar to American Girls and that it's a somewhat misunderstood song.
01:18:51
Speaker
Geffen, Adam told a story at some point that Geffen actually, or maybe someone at Geffen, maybe not the whole record label, but tried to convince him to change it to You Can Count On Me. yeah It's so upbeat and so uplifting. And he's like, that's not the point of the song. You can't get the rest of the lyrics suggest You Can't Count On Me. Um...
01:19:09
Speaker
I actually think I had this relatively high. Chris, you remember had it at number five. Yeah, you had it at the highest. So we'll start with you. And then ah the rest of us all had it in the middle. I kind of thought that this would um be lower on your guys' list. i For some reason, I thought you negative, but nobody was. I think it's a good song. So Chris, you why do you have it so high? Yeah, i kind of um I kind of relate to the song. I think that in part, again, I think these songs are all so close. And again, there's a lot of great songs in this record.
01:19:38
Speaker
um I guess I've always kind of related to the idea of like, you think this is going great, but like, there's probably something beneath the surface that I'm not explaining as well as I could. um And I'm sorry, but this is going to end quite poorly for you. um And so I just sort of understand that energy.
01:19:56
Speaker
And I think it's kind of a lovely, I mean, it's I don't know. It sort of works for that sentiment. I think it relative to American Girls, I think it's a fully realized sentiment in that the poppiness and the happiness of it combined with the way it gets down and sad and and the actual lyrics all kind of come together.
01:20:15
Speaker
in a very nice package. I think it's a great song. and they have Another one, to your point, Eric, they haven't played it, it's over a decade now. um And that they'd only played it like once or twice in those years. Yeah, I was just looking, it's hardly ever played. i mean, lot less than America. mean, it's hardly ever played. And and really, it looks like they the only three years they played it regularly was eight, eight ah nine, and 12. And even 12, it was 10 times during that year. not lot. Part of what happened with this record, I will say,
01:20:41
Speaker
is that So obviously they released it in early 2008. They played it, all of the songs, with some frequency in 2008. Although notably, most of that 2008 touring um was either festivals in Europe, so shorter sets, or a co-headline with Maroon 5, so shorter sets. They were playing like 75, 80 minutes a night. Then 2009 and 2010, those were the traveling circus shows. So they weren't playing a lot of their own songs at all. And and to the extent, a lot of it ended up being driven by the songs they liked playing um with the other bands, which didn't end up turning out to be any of the Saturday nights and Sunday morning songs. These songs all got played a little bit, but not nearly as much. Um,
01:21:26
Speaker
And then by the time they get back, they took 2011 off, they come back in 2012, they'd recorded the covers record. And that sort of took its place. And so these songs, all of them, for for sort of obvious reasons, if you follow that path, had sort of a short life in that regard. um And again, I don't think, you know, it's a popular, I don't think it's an unpopular record, but it's also not the album, I think, where a song people are demanding for them to play. so Yeah, there are fans that just never bought the album. You know what mean? I think like a lot of people near me in concerts, I've asked them and it's not like they, oh, I bought Saturday Night, Sunday Mornings and I didn't, like they just kind of stopped, but maybe because it had like less radio hits and of course times and people get older and people stop buying CDs. But a lot of fans bought the first four and just, you know, three or four and and and maybe just didn't even have this one. I don't have too much to say about it. I like it. um you know There's been a couple songs and i I'll give my last shout out to Todd. I think this was,
01:22:23
Speaker
I don't know what year this was, but we were at some bar and, you know, and they had a jukebox of CDs or whatever there. And this was a couple of years after the song was released, but we played it because it was a Crows song and on the jukebox. We're like, this is a great song.
01:22:37
Speaker
um And that just set me in because it was, you know, and out of context from the video and just listening to a CD on your own. um Jeff, did you have comments on on the song? ah I mean, again, yeah, I had it ranked at number seven. I think it has a great, really great chorus. It's ah it's another just, you know, excellent song on the album.
01:22:58
Speaker
I think though one of the interesting things is how they recorded it, because this is on the Sunday mornings side of the album. yeah but This is an example of of something that you wouldn't, you know, mistake for like Washington Square, certainly.
01:23:13
Speaker
It almost, I mean, seems like it could have been on the Saturday nights part of the album. To make me happy math-wise, yes, Jeff. that's Right? Well, so one of the things that they did to record this was they Adam was saying they couldn't quite, it wasn't coming together in the studio. And so they moved the drum kit out into the hallway um I think that's what he said. And then they mic'd it in an unusual way. They just had like two overhead mics.
01:23:40
Speaker
And then on the bass drum, they had a mic that was like seven feet away from the kit rather than inside the bass drum. And that's it. Normally when you studio mic a drum kit, it's like every single drum is mic'd and...
01:23:53
Speaker
um There's this a second room mic and stuff like that. So by micing it that way where the mics weren't real close, he said we could just bash it and play it really, really hard. And so they played it like super hard and did that version of it. It had been kind of, he said it was too pretty before that. And then they brought in the band and said, okay,
01:24:15
Speaker
you know, play along with this like almost punk rock version that we did. And that's the version that they ended up using. it's kind of an unusual strategy. Millard used ah ah like a small, like a Beatle bass, like a Hoffner Beatle bass. And in some ways by using different instruments, micing them differently, they were able to like,
01:24:35
Speaker
Play the song really hard, but not have it come out where it's overwhelming you and like a 1492 kind of, you know, I think they kind of played it like they played 1492, but mic'd it in a way that it didn't come out like that in the production.
01:24:50
Speaker
ah Ryan, any thoughts on the song at all? Well, like I was, I kind of gave my little anecdote with this one at the top. I i had i had gotten divorced right about like less than two months before this record came out. And so this, the lyrics of this song just completely...
01:25:08
Speaker
Just spoke to me in that moment. And so, yeah, I, I, I would love, I love just screaming the lyrics to this in the car. um And so, yeah, I had this one at, at number nine and it sounds like, yeah, I was kind of right around where most everybody else was. And yeah. So yeah, i've I've always enjoyed, I still enjoy, it like, thankfully all that pain is, that's all about me. I'm happily married with a family now. No complaints.
01:25:35
Speaker
But so yeah, I can, I have a different relationship to this song now. ah And I still love it. But yeah, at at the time, that is that is my ah first met, like that's, that when you say the name of this song, that's where my brain goes is to that that moment in time. yeah.
01:25:52
Speaker
I guess lyrics wise in that way, it kind of matches with Miami a little bit, right? Because isn't that part of Miami that you can't count on him because that the, that the, that it's going to end. He knows it. um Yes. they don't trust me. I'll be moving on and have new girlfriend pretty soon. So, um okay. So we've gotten through half the songs and to everyone's point already, it's, it's not a spoiler by saying that five of the eight Sunday morning songs, although we love them, are on our quote unquote last half of the list. And if you count Gil Norton's come around on the first half, then really we're saying five of the seven ah Brian Deck produced songs. So it just says that- So Eric, are you saying that Geffen was right all along? Well, I'm saying that- Are we filming Geffen right here? I'm saying that Gil Norton's half, we tend to agree did a great job and maybe slightly better than Deck's group, even though deck even even though Sunday mornings had some great songs. They had the REM problem where the the rock songs were stronger than the acoustic songs.
01:26:55
Speaker
Yeah, and we'll talk about that. But yeah, because a lot of the rock songs came up and we'll give our thoughts maybe why it really worked on this album. And to be honest, and I think, Jeff, you're probably going to say this, i don't want to steal your thunder, but this is kind of the last time we've had heavy rock except for maybe until boxcars. And that's just one song.
01:27:11
Speaker
um I would argue that this is kind of the grand hurrah of that, of that ah you know, Age of the Crows. yeah Before we move on Paul, ah one thing as as someone who is collecting autographs of the Crows and someone who has ah signed albums and et cetera and own Jeff's book without us pitching it to
Counting Crows Fan Journey
01:27:32
Speaker
you.
01:27:32
Speaker
How did you become a Crows fan? And um and we said off the record, a Paul is from Malta and moved to um the Canary Islands. Now, I don't know how old you were. And did you become a Crows fan back in Malta? Because that's kind of interesting to me, ah too. so Yes. Well, ah Counting Crows band, I got to know when I was in Malta.
01:27:58
Speaker
and So it's more than 20 years ago. The first album was August and Everything After. um i think it was True Friends. And not necessarily in 93 when it came out, but sometime after that.
01:28:13
Speaker
um You know, sometimes we discover bands or albums not at the time of release, but sometimes later. And and some albums mean a lot more to us.
01:28:28
Speaker
than others. So we just keep on listening to them over and over, over that over a period of time. Even if new albums come out of the same band, we kind of stick to the old album, which we know so well.
01:28:41
Speaker
um But August and Everything After brings back so many memories of my... younger years, not to say childhood, my younger years in Malta as I was growing up.
01:28:56
Speaker
um I didn't mention this, but I used to DJ at ah a classic rock and blues bar in St. Julian's in Malta called Muddy Waters.
01:29:08
Speaker
And I used to put music on every Saturday night for six years running. And Mr. Jones was one of the buzz anthems and but I just remember listening to the album from start to finish I'd leave it play um so I kind of know the songs and the lyrics by heart and when i listen and when I go back to listening to them it just takes me back to that time and that's one of the most amazing things about music it's um like a time machine if you wish
01:29:50
Speaker
did Was Holiday in Spain either ah popular in Malta or Spain that you knew of, that song as a single? Yes, Holiday in Spain was popular, was popular in Malta.
01:30:05
Speaker
like Played on radio and stuff, right? so Yeah, well, Holiday in Spain came from the album Hard Candy, which was released in 2002. Right.
01:30:18
Speaker
right and And, yeah, it was it was came out with Big Yellow Taxi, didn't it? Same thing. We had the I'm not forgetting his name, but when we had guests from the Netherlands. but But yeah, we thought it was really interesting because it really wasn't a single here, but it was a single in Europe. So, yes. Well, I remember listening to it on the radio.
01:30:40
Speaker
Yeah, cool. I wish Americans got that. Yeah, it's really a weird song in that we've talked about it numerous times, how it's now it's like a concert mate mainstay, even though when it Hard Candy came out, it wasn't even really played that much. Right, Chris? like I don't think they were playing it at every concert when Hard Candy, and it wasn't and it wasn't a single in the US as far as, you know, really.
01:30:58
Speaker
yeah and so Yeah, it wasn't a single. and it I mean, it did become, I think relatively quickly, it became something they closed with with some regularity yeah um just because it is sort of a a good closure. But yeah, it just obviously took off. um Obviously this record of course has one of the bonus tracks is a song with Bluff, went in on September.
01:31:17
Speaker
um no right. Which is quite good. um Getting used to September essentially. Okay. y'll like listen Another September, December. Yeah. i've seen I've seen the Counting Crows three times, of which all were in Barcelona and three different tours.
01:31:36
Speaker
And they always did that song. and okay I think, if I can remember correctly, it t was always in the encore. yeahp And it was always very emotional as well.
01:31:47
Speaker
Because I don't live in... and Well, I live in the Canary Islands, but when you go to Barcelona ah for a concert and you hear that song, it's kind of special, you know?
01:32:01
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's great. Thank you. and thanks for And because ah Paul was in the super VIP line in the Barcelona show, I was right in front of Bryson, which made me happy because I mildly worship Bryson. But Paul was right in front of Adam, you know staring right. He could basically touch Adam. In fact, I've got some fantastic photographs of that night and of of Adam, um which I'd be more than happy to share with you.
01:32:27
Speaker
All right, so that's the end of part one. Check back in a few weeks for part two. Thanks, everyone, for listening.