Last Sunday night we attended a TWLOHA event in
Music met me in 1993-94 in the form of Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows. I was watching MTV (back when they actually showed music videos) and there he was…. Dreads bouncing around his head, singing about Mr. Jones and I was in love! Not necessarily with him (kinda tho.) but with the sound…. After a few years of nothing but Nirvana, Pearl Jam and G&R (which I never really liked, G&R that is) this music was.. forgive me for saying so… music to my ears! =) I went out as soon as I could and bought August and Everything After. I came home and put it in the tape player and collapsed into the sounds….
I was going thru my divorce at the time and had decided that I was going to go to OBU and since I never took the ACT in high school, I was studying to take it. SO I would sit at Mom and Dad’s kitchen table listening to this tape over and over while studying… and feeling amazed that someone could relate on such a personal level… the song Raining in Baltimore touched me…. Spoke to me… sang feelings that I couldn’t express… his voice echoed the pain I was feeling… I didn’t realize at the time just how much it would impact me, but I can tell you now that I have a line from this song etched onto my skin…. “What would you change if you could?”… this has become a theme in my life…. I strive to live my life with no regrets. of course there are things in my life I wish could’ve been different - mistakes I’ve made – but hopefully I’ve learned from them and at the very least they’ve made me who I am today. Good, bad and everything in between…
This song still speaks to a very vulnerable part of me… I can still put this album on and the first notes of Round Here take me away…I still love the whole album, it’s very special to me – actually all but the last album by them is special to me because they became MY band – some of my closest friendships were formed because of a common love for this band. SO I’m going to post the lyrics to this song along with some notations of the lines that stand out to me as ones that meant a lot to me then…
But I want you to tell me… what is your song?
Raining In
The circus is falling down on its knees
The big top is crumbling down
It’s raining in
Where you should be, no one’s around *
I need a phone call*
I need a rain coat
I need a big love
I need a phone call
These train conversations are passing me by
And I don’t have nothing to say*
You get what you pay for
But I just had no intention of living this way*
I need a phone call*
I need a plane ride*
I need a sun burn*
I need a raincoat
And I get no answers
And I don’t get no change
It’s raining in
But everything else is the same
There’s things I remember and things I forget*
I miss you*
I guess that I should*
Three thousand five hundred miles away
But what would you change if you could*****(!)
I need a phone call*
Maybe I should buy a new car
I can always hear a freight train
If I listen real hard
And I wish it was a small world
Because I’m lonely for the big towns*
I’d like to hear a little guitar*
I think it’s time to put the top down
I need a phone call*
I need a raincoat