DJ Allyn – The Soundtrack for my Life

Mr. Jones ~ Counting Crows  

Counting Crows is a rock band originating from Berkeley, California.

Singer Adam Duritz (former member of the Bay Area band The Himalayans) and guitarist Dave Bryson formed Counting Crows in San Francisco in 1991. As well as his experience in The Himalayans, Duritz had contributed to recordings by the Bay Area group Sordid Humor, although he was never a member. Counting Crows began as an acoustic duo, playing gigs in and around Berkeley and San Francisco. By 1993, the band had grown to a stable lineup of Duritz, Bryson, Matt Malley (bass guitar), Charlie Gillingham (keyboard instruments) and Steve Bowman (drums), and it was a regular on the Bay Area scene.

The band took its name from a divination rhyme about the crow, heard by Duritz in the film Signs of Life. The rhyme is used at the end of the song “A Murder of One” on the album August and Everything After: “Well I dreamt I saw you walking up a hillside in the snow / Casting shadows on the winter sky as you stood there, counting crows / One for sorrow, two for joy / Three for girls and four for boys / Five for silver, six for gold / Seven for a secret never to be told.” In the poem, the act of counting crows is particularly useless. Duritz reveals that a name is just a name, and, with that, is useless and can be anything. This recalls a traditional rhyme: “One crow means sorrow, two crows mean joy, three crows a wedding, four crows a boy, five crows mean silver, six crows mean gold, seven crows a secret that’s never been told.” In the United Kingdom, the rhyme is well known but uses magpies rather than crows. A popular superstition states that if one sees a single magpie, one should greet it to deflect the “sorrow”.

Mr. Jones

“Mr. Jones,” refers to The Himalayans bassist (and Duritz’s childhood friend) Marty Jones and Kenney Dale Johnson, the drummer of Silvertone (Chris Isaak’s band), describing the desire of working musicians to make it big and the fantasies they entertain about what this might bring.

I was down at the New Amsterdam staring at this yellow-haired girl
Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation with this black-haired flamenco dancer
She dances while his father plays guitar
She’s suddenly beautiful
We all want something beautiful
I wish I was beautiful
So come dance this silence down through the morning
Cut Maria! Show me some of them Spanish dances
Pass me a bottle, Mr. Jones
Believe in me
Help me believe in anything
I want to be someone who believes

Mr. Jones and me tell each other fairy tales
Stare at the beautiful women
“She’s looking at you. Ah, no, no, she’s looking at me.”
Smiling in the bright lights
Coming through in stereo
When everybody loves you, you can never be lonely

I will paint my picture
Paint myself in blue and red and black and gray
All of the beautiful colors are very very meaningful
Grey is my favorite color
I felt so symbolic yesterday
If I knew Picasso
I would buy myself a gray guitar and play

Mr. Jones and me look into the future
Stare at the beautiful women
“She’s looking at you.
Uh, I don’t think so. She’s looking at me.”
Standing in the spotlight
I bought myself a gray guitar
When everybody loves me, I will never be lonely

I want to be a lion
Everybody wants to pass as cats
We all want to be big big stars, but we got different reasons for thatBelieve in me because I don’t believe in anything
and I want to be someone to believe

Mr. Jones and me stumbling through the barrio
Yeah we stare at the beautiful women
“She’s perfect for you, Man, there’s got to be somebody for me.”
I want to be Bob Dylan
Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky
When everybody loves you, son, that’s just about as funky as you can be

Mr. Jones and me staring at the video
When I look at the television, I want to see me staring right back at me
We all want to be big stars, but we don’t know why and we don’t know how
But when everybody loves me, I’m going to be just about as happy as can be
Mr. Jones and me, we’re gonna be big stars..

Other Songs Posted for this Artist

• October 6, 2009 -- Round Here ~ Counting Crows
• January 29, 2009 -- Big Yellow Taxi ~ Counting Crows