dmr
Registered Abuser
I'm moving this over here to Something Completely Different, I would probably get killed if I posted all of this rambling in Rangefinder General.
Mr Jones was really the only tune that CC did that ever really got much airplay. It was very catchy, and got play on top 40, AOR, and modern rock stations.
Their tune Omaha (Somewhere in Middle America) got brief airplay in maybe 1995 or so, but nothing else they did really caught on. You would probably recognize it if you heard it but you just don't know the name.
Mr Jones seemed like such an enigmatic tune. It's my fave CC tune of all times I guess and I first picked up that he (Adam Duritz) was just talking about what guys do (and girls do it too) like sitting in a bar looking at the women and not having the nerve or whatever to go up and start talking to them and such.
Well, I always thought there was something much deeper than that, but when he was interviewed back in 1994 or so he (Adam) did confirm (I didn't hear this but others told me) that Mr Jones was a drinking buddy and former bandmate and yes, he was singing in first person referring to just that situation. He was saying that if he was a Big Star<tm> it would be much easier to break the ice and such.
This meaning also has some very special meaning to me, because just before the tune came out I was recently separated and changing careers at the same time. Well, I and a girlfriend (who was plotting to leave her semi-abusive soon-to-be-ex) would get together at a bar almost every Friday after work. We were really too old for the singles bar scene, but we would hang out until the 20-boppers took over, telling each other fairy tales, people watch, and consume more pitchers than it was politically correct to do even back in 1993 and 1994 or so.
We would sit and just and watch the people, and no, we didn't really have the nerve to go up and start talking, and we people watched, watched guys hit on girls and get turned down, and yes, we'd get hit on (by guys 10 years younger than we were) and we would sometimes string them along and ... Jeez, why am I telling all this?
Oh, and there are some more rather graphic interpretations of Mr. Jones if you ask around.
I just think they're cat fanciers. (They have different reasons for that.)
I tried to read something into that, being a cat fancier myself, and always wondering if little housecats really wanted to be lions or tigers or something.
I just think that Adam wanted to be a lion and a Big Star<tm> but at the time he knew he was just a little kitty-cat so to speak.
But wait ...
... there's more!
The one Counting Crows meaning or "Easter Egg" that I >>DID<< get, which just zooms over most people is that sometimes when they play the song live, when they get to the "I wanna be Bob Dylan" line, Adam will sometimes sing "I wanna be Alex Chilton" instead.
Well, Alex Chilton is a name most people don't recognize, but everybody knows the voice.
Think "Gimme a ticket for an air-o-plane ...." from the Box Tops 1967 hit.
Well, Alex Chilton was the lead singer for Box Tops, but he ALSO was with another group, short lived, never really had anything major, called ...
... you guessed it ...
"Big Star"<tm>
Jeez, I don't believe I'm such a motormouth on here. I just noticed that I have made 742 posts. I woulda guessed about half that at most. (I had to edit this again 'cuz it said I used too many smilies.)
Oh well ...
RJBender said:
Mr Jones was really the only tune that CC did that ever really got much airplay. It was very catchy, and got play on top 40, AOR, and modern rock stations.
Their tune Omaha (Somewhere in Middle America) got brief airplay in maybe 1995 or so, but nothing else they did really caught on. You would probably recognize it if you heard it but you just don't know the name.
Mr Jones seemed like such an enigmatic tune. It's my fave CC tune of all times I guess and I first picked up that he (Adam Duritz) was just talking about what guys do (and girls do it too) like sitting in a bar looking at the women and not having the nerve or whatever to go up and start talking to them and such.
Well, I always thought there was something much deeper than that, but when he was interviewed back in 1994 or so he (Adam) did confirm (I didn't hear this but others told me) that Mr Jones was a drinking buddy and former bandmate and yes, he was singing in first person referring to just that situation. He was saying that if he was a Big Star<tm> it would be much easier to break the ice and such.
This meaning also has some very special meaning to me, because just before the tune came out I was recently separated and changing careers at the same time. Well, I and a girlfriend (who was plotting to leave her semi-abusive soon-to-be-ex) would get together at a bar almost every Friday after work. We were really too old for the singles bar scene, but we would hang out until the 20-boppers took over, telling each other fairy tales, people watch, and consume more pitchers than it was politically correct to do even back in 1993 and 1994 or so.
We would sit and just and watch the people, and no, we didn't really have the nerve to go up and start talking, and we people watched, watched guys hit on girls and get turned down, and yes, we'd get hit on (by guys 10 years younger than we were) and we would sometimes string them along and ... Jeez, why am I telling all this?
Oh, and there are some more rather graphic interpretations of Mr. Jones if you ask around.
I just think they're cat fanciers.
(They have different reasons for that.) I tried to read something into that, being a cat fancier myself, and always wondering if little housecats really wanted to be lions or tigers or something.
I just think that Adam wanted to be a lion and a Big Star<tm> but at the time he knew he was just a little kitty-cat so to speak.
But wait ...
... there's more!
The one Counting Crows meaning or "Easter Egg" that I >>DID<< get, which just zooms over most people is that sometimes when they play the song live, when they get to the "I wanna be Bob Dylan" line, Adam will sometimes sing "I wanna be Alex Chilton" instead.
Well, Alex Chilton is a name most people don't recognize, but everybody knows the voice.
Think "Gimme a ticket for an air-o-plane ...." from the Box Tops 1967 hit.
Well, Alex Chilton was the lead singer for Box Tops, but he ALSO was with another group, short lived, never really had anything major, called ...
... you guessed it ...
"Big Star"<tm>
Jeez, I don't believe I'm such a motormouth on here. I just noticed that I have made 742 posts. I woulda guessed about half that at most. (I had to edit this again 'cuz it said I used too many smilies.)
Oh well ...
RJBender
RFF Sponsoring Member
Yes, D, Mr. Jones has a nice beat and was top 40. The lryics are too mumbled for me. I thought the title of the song was "Mr. Chumley" when I first heard it on the radio.
R.J.
when I first heard it on the radio. It's really a song about my friend Marty and I. We went out one night to watch his dad play, his dad was a flamenco guitar player who lived in Spain, and he was in San Francisco in the mission playing with his old flamenco troupe. And after the gig we all went to this bar called the New Amsterdam in San Francisco on Columbus and we got completely drunk. And Marty and I sat at the bar staring at these two girls, wishing there was *some* way we could go talk to them, but we were, we were too shy. And we thought, we kept joking with each other, that if we were big rock stars instead of such loser, low-budget musicians, we'd be able to, this would be easy. And I went home that night and I wrote a song about it.
( http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetYjqY/ccfaq/newfaq.htm#4.53 )R.J.
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W
wlewisiii
Guest
ALEX CHILTON?????
(Swoons)
In case you wonder about the over reaction, I was, once upon a very long time ago, a Replacements fan. If you know, god bless, and if you don't, well, I really can't help you. Go download "Dyslexic Heart"and you'll get a tiny glimpse of what I am talking about...
The only thing better out of the twin cites was Husker Du doing the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song... OTOH, if you want to understand why us midwestern nice folks would go punk, a review of thier lyrics wouldn't hurt you.
William
(Swoons)
In case you wonder about the over reaction, I was, once upon a very long time ago, a Replacements fan. If you know, god bless, and if you don't, well, I really can't help you. Go download "Dyslexic Heart"and you'll get a tiny glimpse of what I am talking about...
The only thing better out of the twin cites was Husker Du doing the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song... OTOH, if you want to understand why us midwestern nice folks would go punk, a review of thier lyrics wouldn't hurt you.
William
dmr
Registered Abuser
RJBender said:
Yeah, this puts more of the lyrics in perspective. Thanks for the link. It even refers to one of the other supposed meanings that was going around for a while.
RJBender
RFF Sponsoring Member
dmr436 said:Yeah, this puts more of the lyrics in perspective. Thanks for the link. It even refers to one of the other supposed meanings that was going around for a while.
Yeah, how could people possibly confuse Johnson with Jones
R.J.
dmr
Registered Abuser
RJBender said:Yeah, how could people possibly confuse Johnson with Jones
LOL!
(Hey, even I understand that one!)