Counting Crows — Butter Miracle Suite One
EP of the Day — 31 May 2021
Music
EP of the Day — 31 May 2021
Simon Ramsay reviewed Counting Crows Butter Miracle Suite One in Stereoboard on Friday 28 May and summed up the experience of being a fan:
“Being a Counting Crows fan requires the kind of patience usually possessed by a Jedi Master.”
Now I know there is some kind of Star Wars joke/metaphor with “Jedi Master” here, I could come up with to counter it if I knew more about Star Wars.
But I don’t.
So I won’t try.
Adam Duritz has always been one of the best songwriters of Generation X.
I never cared much for “Mr. Jones” off of their debut August and Everything After. But by the time I got to “A Murder of One,” I was hooked. I then began to listen to that album. The depth and texture of the music and lyrics was astounding. But it was “A Murder of One” that really got to me. I never knew why and I must’ve heard that song tens of thousands by now.
So the patience Ramsay mentions may refer to the gap between recordings, but for me, the patience is found in trying to figure out what Duritz is saying. Not that his writing is that confounding. Sometimes it clicks right away, and other times, I know there is something there. It’s just how long is it going to take for me to find my way in?
It only took two-plus decades, but I began to understand why “A Murder of One” reverberates with me in the past year.
Since getting hooked by Counting Crows, I’ve never been disappointed by what they offered up. Ever. They’re an exciting band, with Adam Duritz always exploring himself and his life. Musically, they always stayed in their wheelhouse, and that’s hardly a criticism.
And, of course, like any fan, of any artist, ever, I have my favorites — Recovering the Satellites consistently topping my Counting Crow list.
Now there’s Butter Miracle Suite One.
Historically, there are about 3–5 songs on every Counting Crows album that would just leave my mouth agape. They’re the ones I hit repeat on, over and over …and over. With Butter Miracle Suite One, Counting Crows have put those songs on one EP and called it a “suite.”
For the uninitiated, and I include myself here, a suite is “a collection of short musical pieces which can be played one after another.” In theory, that’s every album, amiright? I thought that a suite had a narrative with each song tangentially connected. Allegedly, it’s not, at least by definition.
The songs/music of a suite are just meant to flow together, and that’s what they do here on Butter Miracle Suite One. Although, I do think there is a connection, however loose, with the songs and a story.
The EP opens with “The Tall Grass,” and true to form, Duritz crushes a turn of phrase that will make your heart miss a beat:
Did I ever say
How your breath
Takes mine away
If you’ve ever met someone special, you know that feeling. And if you’re lucky, it’s still true a year later.
Duritz’s struggles have never been hidden, but I have always appreciated that he doesn’t let whatever they are define him. And he doesn’t solely hang his creative hat on them, but they pop-up in his work:
There are some of us get broken when we’re children
And you never get it back once that is gone
As we get older, the honest among us realize that we all get broken as children. And we have to constantly remind ourselves that our parents “did the best they could” — and maybe their best wasn’t so great.
If there is a narrative on Butter Miracle Suite One, it’s the story of “Bobby” (Adam Duritz, maybe). At least that’s what I’m pulling from “Elevator Boots,” which could’ve just as easily been called “Verisimilitude.”
It’s a great rock and roll narrative that tackles some of the elements of being a rock star, like the boredom and the joys (and a perk or two).
With “Elevator Boots” we have the story of “Bobby” who was:
Underwater more than he was up
He dreamed submarines in bottle green
Imaginary flight machines
But in blue-jean flares he bubbled like a 7-up
Everybody wants to know you
When you’re the only one to know
Shoot it ’til you feel alive then play one more show
Plug into the buzz and shake it ’til it turns around
(And you can’t stop feeling)
The Paul Smith suits and the elevator boots astound
(And you can’t help healing)
They want you and you want to
With their lips on fire and your head unscrewed
But it’s time to whip another change and hit one more town
In the third verse of “Elevator Boots,” Duritz scores a hat-trick, capturing the spirit of being a rock star, his struggle with it, and from where it originates:
I snake and sparkle, pant and glide
And it’s hard to feel and I can’t get high
And I don’t always understand how to smile
Man, kids get sick of bein’ bottled up
It drags you down until you throw it up
Got to get out of the house, take a ride on the radio dial
Music and the radio were the escape we had as kids. Whether we turned the radio dial to the right or to the left, it could take us on a “ride” all over the world.
It’s also worth noting that here on “Elevator Boots,” the rest of the Crows are in complete harmony with Duritz and firing on all cylinders.
Dan Vickrey — guitars
David Bryson — guitars
Charles Gillingham — piano
David A. Immerglick — guitars
Jim Bogios — drums
Millard Powers — bass
And as good as the music is, and it’s great, the guitars on “Angel on 14th Street,” including the bass, are particularly noteworthy. So is the trumpet solo by Curtis Watson. But make no mistake, Butter Miracle Suite One is all Adam Duritz — all words and music are credited to Duritz.
With “Angel on 14th Street,” it’s the story and the lyrics that are the highlight for me.
Broadway traffic streaming light
She came from California
Running from daylight into
The endless electric twilight
Lest there be any doubt, this is New York City; Duritz even gives a solid shout-out to the south of 14th Street noise gods from Generation X — Sonic Youth:
These daydream nations won’t come true
The ghosts you made up ghosted you
The angel learns to live with
Things that make her feel uneasy
…and speaking of Generation X, there is the EP’s side one closer, “Bobby and the Rat-Kings”:
I’m an elevator kid pushing buttons when I wanna go home
But my generation hasn’t even got a name of its own
We just buy what the TV sells
And almost never stop wishing we were somebody else
But tonight in the dark I can be myself
There are the identifiers of Generation X definition, latchkey kids, no name for us as a whole, materialistic, and wanting to be someone else.
It’s that kind of very deliberate imagery and the literary quality of Duritz’s lyrics that level-up rock songwriting. It’s a drag that he doesn’t seem to get the recognition he deserves. Or at least, not as much.
Duritz may not be as prolific as a Dylan or Springsteen, but he’s just as powerful.
“Bobby and the Rat-Kings” could just as easily been a Bruce Springsteen song. To Springsteen fans, that may be heresy, but is it possible that the “Rat-Kings” is a veiled reference to the “magic rat” from Springsteen’s “Jungleland”?
The relatability of characters in Counting Crows songs is the same relatability found in some Dylan or Springsteen’s writing.
Some of Duritz’s characters would also fit well in some of Paul Westerberg’s best writing. And much like Westerberg’s, the folks in Duritz’s songs aren’t winners, and they’re not losers; they’re just people putting one foot in front of the other trying to figure it all out. The same as you and me.
Also like Westerberg, Duritz also has a similar sensibility with wordplay:
Z tried to edit Reddit, instead it said it had eaten her phone
She goes from tinder to cinder
’Til she remembers she’s a flame of her own
You can almost lose your heart
Hoping for something better ’til it tears you apart
While the days get longer and this night won’t start
The running thread through much of Counting Crows work and Adam Duritz’s lyrics is love. Sometimes it’s romantic love, a love of an experience, but my sense of Butter Miracle Suite One is that it’s a love of music and its redemptive power.
Sometimes Duritz approaches that love as a performer, like in “Elevator Boots” and sometimes as a fan like in “Bobby and the Rat-Kings:”
Then she kissed me without a thought
Said “Sometimes memories are all that we got
So come on, boy
Let’s make some at the show”
So there’s some leather-wrapped Fender-strapped kid
With a pick-finger twitch
He’s got a recipe for radio or rain
I don’t know which
In the shadows when the lights are dowsed
The cinder kids flare while they twist and shout
We’re the sparks in the dark
That’ll never go out
While there are connections in the songs, however tangential they may be, it would be silly to refer to Butter Miracle Suite One as a “concept” EP.
When you see Counting Crows live, you get a sense that they’re not only playing the music for you in the audience but also for themselves as fans of music. And in the live performances I’ve seen, Duritz seems to end the show by shouting “See ya!” like a friend saying goodbye after a good listening session.
In my head, I hear him saying “See ya!” as “Bobby and the Rat-Kings” and side one of Butter Miracle Suite One ends.
The b-side of the album includes the mythical track “August and Everything After.” If you’re like me, it’s the song you may have spent more than a bit of time wondering why there wasn’t a song by that title on their debut album August and Everything After.
Well, here it is.
Check back with me in 27 years as I sort through this one. I’m older now, so I’m hoping it won’t take that long, but no promises. As I know firsthand, Adam Duritz doesn’t always make it easy for people to find their way into his songs. It’s one of the reasons I like his writing so much.
When it’s all said and done, make no mistake, Butter Miracle Suite One is the best thing Counting Crows have put out in a long time. And that’s not meant to be a snarky comment about the frequency of their releases.
Rome wasn’t built in a day.
And neither are Counting Crows records.