Essentials: The Top 10 Counting Crows Songs

Counting Crows came into being in 1991 in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1993, the band’s debut album, “August and Everything After“, off the back of the breakthrough single ‘Mr. Jones’, the album sold in huge numbers. The band’s live shows are something special; changing the setlist across tours and during tours (deciding what to play before going on stage for each show), making it worthwhile seeing the band multiple times on a tour, because each show is likely to be different. As an example, in November 2014 I saw the band play in Leeds and two days later in Manchester; approximately 60% of the setlist was different over the two nights and all of singer Adam Duritz’s between-song talk was different. This approach to setlists, coupled with the band’s tendency to drop alternates into their songs, change the arrangements, Duritz changing the melody and/or lyrics seemingly to suit his mood, puts the emphasis on each performance and makes it worth going to a show rather than simply listening to records (it also makes it pretty much impossible to sing along!).

Counting Crows could not be described as prolific when it comes to issuing new material; releasing only eight studio albums, commencing with 1993’s “August and Everything After” and bang up to date with May 2025’s “Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets!” itself only half of a new record, being that it’s an expansion of 2021’s “Butter Miracle, Suite One” EP. One of the other studio album releases was an album of cover versions, 2012’s “Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation)“. Add to these a compilation album “Films About Ghosts (The Best Of…“) released in November 2003 and four live albums (plus a live album bundled as part of a Deluxe version of “August and Everything After“).

Cover versions play a large part in the live setting; either as alternates during the band’s own songs, introductions to songs or as standalone cover songs. Songs such as Warren Zevon’s ‘Carmelita‘, Grateful Dead’s ‘Friend of the Devil‘, Jackson C. Frank’s ‘Blues Run the Game‘ and Dylan’s ‘Girl from the North Country‘ have often featured as standalone covers,  whereas alternates within the band’s own songs have included Springsteen’s ‘Thunder Road‘, Sordid Humor’s ‘Doris Day‘ and sometimes other Counting Crows songs). At other times the band will play a cover version or part thereof as an introduction to one of their own songs, such as Gillian Welch’s ‘Look at Miss Ohio‘; indeed ‘Mr. Jones’ live often starts with the first few lines from The Byrds’ ‘So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star‘; “So you wanna be a rock ‘n’ roll star? Well listen now to what I say, Just get an electric guitar, And take some time to learn how to play“, before slipping seamlessly into ‘Mr. Jones‘.

I have selected the songs which I consider (at the moment) to be the best Counting Crows songs, however the usual caveats apply; it’s just my opinion and were I to pick my 10 on another day, there’s a good chance that there would be some variance. In truth, I would have preferred to pick 20 songs, but then we would have needed a much bigger feature article.

Number 10: ‘Butterfly in Reverse‘ from “Hard Candy” (2002)

Produced by Steve Lillywhite (XTC, Simple Minds, Peter Gabriel, U2) “Hard Candy” had a more immediate, pop rock sound to it than previous Counting Crows releases. ‘Butterfly in Reverse‘ credits Duritz, Gillingham and Ryan Adams as co-writers; Adams also supplies background vocals. Adams and Duritz, being long-time friends, would sometimes show up in each other’s records, for example Duritz is background vocalist on ‘Answering Bell‘ from Adams’ 2001 album “Gold“; similarly, the Counting Crows song ‘Los Angeles‘, from 2008’s “Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings” (co-written by Duritz, Adams and Dave Gibbs) a song with lines such as “So if you see that movie star and me” which Duritz would introduce as being about his pal Ryan.

In terms of ‘Butterfly in Reverse‘ Duritz describes the scene where Adams visited and Duritz was playing him some songs that he’d been working on, one of which was ‘Butterfly in Reverse‘; the song reached a line that went “Had a lot of girlfriends, I should have known then, Click your heels and count back from three” at which point Adams exclaimed “That’s a great line; “”Had a lot of girlfriends, I should have known THEM”” having misheard the line. Duritz thought that the line worked better with the word “them” in it.

Number 9: ‘Chelsea‘ from “Across a Wire: Live in New York City” (1998)

In a recent interview with AUK Duritz talked about being drawn to jazz music in his youth and you can see the influences here in this jazz-tinged song. “Across a Wire: Live in New York City” was a live album consisting of two very different live performances, both of which were recorded in venues in New York City, both broadcast on television. Disc one was from a performance for “VH1 Storytellers” (recorded at Chelsea Studios, NYC – August 12, 1997) and disc two from MTV’s “Live From the 10 Spot” (recorded at Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC – November 6, 1997).

At this point in their career, the band had released only two albums; “August and Everything After” and “Recovering the Satellites“. Three songs appear in both sets but are sufficiently different in presentation to make it worthwhile releasing them; disc one being principally acoustic and disc two electric performances.

When this album was released, in July 1998, ‘Chelsea‘ was a hidden track at the end of disc one of the two disc CD set, following a period of silence and white noise. The song does not appear on any other of the band’s albums and appears not to have been recorded as part of the performance at Chelsea Studios, instead being recorded as part of the sessions for “Recovering the Satellites“. It’s very different in style to much of the band’s output and the recording, with Duritz’s vocal being close mic’d along with piano and brass instruments, puts Duritz right in your living room.

Number 8: ‘Sullivan Street‘ from “August and Everything After” (1993)

Duritz the songwriter often refers to characters who are real people; he describes this song as being about a girl called Susan. Duritz lived in Berkeley and Susan lived at the opposite side of San Francisco. Susan’s mother came to live with her and had strong religious views, meaning Duritz had to drive Susan home after every time they met; she couldn’t stay at Duritz’s place; the drive there and back took a long time and Duritz found it onerous. He wrote a song about it, but admits that his route didn’t take in any street named Sullivan Street. The lyrics begin with “Take the way home that leads back to Sullivan Street, Cross the water, home through the town”. The relationship didn’t survive.

Number 7: ‘Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby‘ from “This Desert Life” (1999)

Duritz wrote this song for American actress Monica Potter after seeing her in a movie and having fallen in love with the character she played. In an amazing piece of coincidence, Duritz was invited out to dinner in Los Angeles on the day that the band were recording this song and Potter was among the other dinner guests. It came up in conversation that there was a song written in honour of Potter (or at least the character she portrayed on celluloid) and that Duritz was going to have to return to the recording studio to complete the song. Potter, fascinated by the situation, asked to witness the recording and went to the studio to take in the proceedings. As she was leaving, a member of the studio personnel handed Potter a cassette with a recording of the song on it. Subsequently the band continued to work on the song and make adjustments to it, up to the point where they became disillusioned with what it had become and discarded it. After their chance meeting, Duritz and Potter had kept in touch and some time later, Duritz visited Potter at home and the song came up in conversation, at which point Duritz said the band had ditched it because they had become unhappy with it. Potter replied that she loved the song and proceeded to play the cassette that she had been given; she said that she played it every day. Duritz asked her what it was she was listening to and Potter revealed that the tape had “Take 4” scrawled on it. Duritz exclaimed that that was the way the band wanted the song to sound, but had tweaked it so many times that they had turned it into something they no longer liked. Duritz returned to the studio with the cassette, where the relevant changes were made to get the song back to where they originally intended it to be and thankfully was included on the “This Desert Life” album.

Number 6: ‘Rain King‘ from “August and Everything After” (1993)

This song (one of the more uptempo numbers on the record) makes reference to the 1959 Saul Bellow novel, “Henderson the Rain King“. The novel is about a character named Eugene Henderson, a man who has the trappings of success however, having reached middle-age, feels his life lacks fulfilment. Henderson travels to Africa where, in the village of Warriri, having demonstrated enormous strength by moving a giant statue of the goddess Mummah, Henderson unwittingly becomes the Rain King, called Sungo. When the King of the village is killed by a lion, Henderson is informed that the Rain King is next in succession to becoming King of the village, at which point Henderson flees the village.

This is a version of ‘Rain King‘ with a ‘Thunder Road‘ alternate.

Number 5: ‘Palisades Park‘ from “Somewhere Under Wonderland” (2014)

This long song has two threads to it; it’s about two friends in New York and some of their adventures. As the friends grow up, one of them becomes interested in cross dressing. The other thread relates to Jim Jeffries; boxing heavyweight champion of the world who came out of retirement in 1910 to fight against Jack Johnson, the first black world heavyweight boxing champion, in what was dubbed “The Fight of the Century” in Reno, Nevada. Ahead of the fight, Jeffries was labelled “The Great White Hope” but Johnson knocked him out and his defeat led to race riots in the USA. The song starts with a trumpet and piano introduction, before the vocals come in with “Somebody screaming on Jim Jeffries’ dreams, Explode into a black fist and fall to the floor, He stares up at the sky and he may wish he knew why“. ‘Palisades Park‘ is quite a long song, coming in at eight minutes 21 seconds; it features several changes of pace, melody and subject, reflecting the occasions when the band include alternate songs embedded in their own, in the live environment.

Number 4: ‘Omaha’ from “August and Everything After” (1993)

Duritz claims he wrote the song before ever visiting Omaha and was somewhat embarrassed a few years later when the Mayor of Omaha wanted to present him with a key to the city.

Number 3: ‘Goodnight Elisabeth‘ from “Recovering the Satellites” (1996)

A song about one of Duritz’ ex-girlfriends (Betsy); the relationship struggled when Duritz had to spend a lot of time away on tour. Betsy was also featured in the song ‘I Wish I Was a Girl‘ from “This Desert Life” where Duritz suggests that if he was a girl, Betsy would believe him when he says he sleeps alone when he’s on tour. Some of the lyrics appear to reference the circus; “We couldn’t all be cowboys, some of us are clowns, Some of us are dancers on the midway, We roam from town to town, I hope that everybody can find a little flame, And me, I say my prayers, then I just light myself on fire, and walk out on the wire once again” .

It’s a little known fact that for many years, the guitar solo from ‘Goodnight Elisabeth‘ has been the ringtone on my mobile ‘phone.

Here’s a version with an alternate of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Pale Blue Eyes’.

Number 2: ‘If I Could Give All My Love – Or – Richard Manuel is Dead‘ from “Hard Candy” (2002)

So good they named it twice? Duritz wrote the lyrics of this song 15 years or more after Richard Manuel, musical genius and member of The Band (but plagued with depression and substance and alcohol abuse) took his own life, aged 42. The music was composed by Counting Crows members Duritz, Dan Vickrey, David Immerglück, Charlie Gillingham and Matt Malley.

Number 1: ‘A Long December‘ from “Recovering the Satellites” (1996)

This amazing ballad, usually performed with Duritz on piano and regular keyboard player Gillingham on the accordion, is a mainstay of the band’s live performances. The song was written after one of Duritz’s friends was hospitalised due to a road traffic accident and Duritz visited him in hospital. On stage, the song is sometimes introduced by segueing it with an alternate, such as Taylor Swift’s ‘the 1‘, Or Gillian Welch’s ‘Look at Miss Ohio‘.