Published on Dec 2, 1999
“If you’ve never stared off into the distance then
your life is a shame.” – Adam Duritz
* * *
One of the first things you learn about poets is that precious
few ever make a living at it. The ones well-off enough to afford to
treat it as more than an after-hours discipline rarely have the
empathy or subtlety or obsessive drive to create that’s required to
excel at it. The ones who have those traits but lack financial
backing and/or a gift for self-promotion generally starve in
obscurity.
So right there, without even touching the music, we can
establish that Adam Duritz is something special.
* * *
“Beginning to believe in the disappearing nature of
the people we have been.”
* * *
One of the big questions heading into studio album number three
for Counting Crows was: is this really a band, or is it just Adam
Duritz and Those Other Guys Playing the Instruments? He’s written
the lyrics to every song they’ve released, and written or
co-written the music to every one as well — even the band’s name
is a quote from his lyrics.
The answer to this question lies in looking at the musical
progression evident in the band’s trio of albums to date. The first
album featured amazing lyrics, but sometimes suffered from
underdeveloped arrangements and a sense of self-imposed pressure to
make each song feel “important.”
Their sophomore try, 1997’s
Recovering The Satellites, had a fuller, richer sound thanks
mostly to the contributions of founding keyboard player Charlie
Gillingham, added guitarist Dan Vickery and new drummer Ben Mize.
Still, the primary focus remained on Duritz’s words and instantly
recognizable vocal style.
With
This Desert Life, Counting Crows has now officially become a
band, in the sense of a fully collaborative musical unit. Yes,
Duritz supplies the voice, and his poetry is as potent as ever, but
the band, individually and collectively, plays a significantly
larger role here than on
August. The complex arrangements of songs like “All My
Friends” and “High Life” are opened up by the band’s loose,
confident approach to them. If Duritz alone carried echoes of a
young Dylan, with this third album, Counting Crows carries echoes
of Dylan in his heyday with The Band.
* * *
“I’m going down to Hollywood
They’re going to make a movie from the things that
they find crawling round my brain”
* * *
The songs continue Duritz’s review of existence as seen through
the eyes of a series of dreamers and misfits, loners and slackers
living on the fringes, sorting through the debris of their lives
looking for some meaningful spark they can cling to. The
autobiographical references are clear in songs like “High Life” and
“Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby,” but more and more often Duritz appears to
be cataloguing a state of mind rather than his own life. This tends
to make the narratives a little less searing but more universal
than on the band’s first two discs.
* * *
“I am covered in skin
No one gets to come in
Pull me out from inside
I am folded and unfolded and unfolding”
* * *
The music builds off of the band’s classic rock roots more
skillfully than ever, thanks particularly to Gillingham’s very
effective use of the Hammond B-3 and mellotron. For spice, they
throw in sitar on “Amy Hits The Atmosphere” and well-arranged
strings on three or four tracks.
The key, though, it that the band has learned to work so much
better as an ensemble. The precise playing on the closing “St.
Robinson And His Cadillac Dream” is almost ear candy, every note is
so dead-on, yet it’s miles away from being “pop.” Mandolin, keys
and a keening electric guitar play off each other, the rhythm
section holds a beat here and there to punctuate specific lines,
the harmonies layer nicely in the right places… yet it all
feels organic, as if it was recorded live on the first take.
* * *
“Carrie’s down in her basement all toes shoes and
twinned
With the girl in the mirror who spins when she
spins
From where you think you’ll end up to the state that
you’re in
Your reflection approaches and then recedes
again”
* * *
It’s like champagne and caviar, or ketchup and fries… a
natural, potent match… Duritz’s intense lyrical flights,
grounded in skillfully down-to-earth music.
* * *
“There’s a hole in the ceiling through which I
fell
There’s a girl in the basement coming out of her
shell
And there are people who will say that they knew me
so well…
I may not go to heaven
I hope you go to hell”
* * *
The songs are rarely easy to listen to. The melodies on tunes
like “Hanginaround,” “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby” and the
Byrds-influenced “Four Days” are stronger than ever, but the lyrics
are often dense and dark, full of damaged people searching for
paths that will take them closer to some faraway light. Taken as a
whole it’s a lot like Faulkner, really — not exactly “light
reading,” but you finish feeling like it’s been time well spent on
a worthy piece of art.
* * *
“If dreams are like movies, then memories are films
about ghosts”
* * *
Finally, the hidden bonus track is a welcome break from this
heaviness, a bunch of in-studio goofiness wrapped around a tasty
four-minute track (probably titled “Kid Thing”) that captures the
musical flavor of early ’70s Stones at least as well as Mick and
company have in the last 25 years. It reminds you forcefully that,
though its voice is the voice of a poet, this is a rock and roll
band – and, now more than ever, a damned good one.