Well, if the strands of gray hair, the love handles, or the random aches and pains are not enough to convince you that you are no longer a spring chicken, how about the fact that Mr. Jones is over twenty years old. I had to get out a calculator to make sure that my math was correct, but I can assure you, August and Everything After is twenty years old last month. Sickening.
Anyway, it is more than poetic that this is the first album to be highlighted on RyansCDoftheDay because it was indeed the first CD I ever owned. A cold Christmas morning, twenty years ago, 13 year old Ryan opened his CD player and immediately began scanning the remaining presents left in his pile for what looked like CD's. To his satisfaction, he found three wrapped CD's. The God's were with Ryan that Christmas morning in the early nineties because (call it divine intervention if you must) little Ryan chose to open August and Everything After first, officially becoming my first CD of all time. I could have been an entirely different person right now if I had chosen to open CD 3, Boyz 2 Men's II first, but that is a story for another day.
On to August and Everything After. Over the course of nearly two years, the album officially released four singles; one became an enormous hit and is still spun on radio stations today, and another, one could debate, could be considered one of, if not the, biggest hit of the era.
I will begin with what I will call the tier 1 songs. There are so many powerful songs on August and Everything After that it is almost refreshing to have some of these "Tier 1" songs as a little break for your throat as you are singing along at the top of your lungs with every word to the Tier 3-5 songs.
Tier 1 songs:
* Perfect Blue Buildings
* Ghost Town
* Raining in Baltimore
I have been listening to this album for twenty years, and these three songs just don't do anything for me. I have tried, many times, but to no avail. If these three songs were replaced by three of the gems from Counting Crow's follow up album Recovering the Satellites, then there is a very good chance I would consider August my favorite album of all time, or at least behind Third Eye Blind and The Killers.
Tier 2 songs:
Time and Time Again
A Murder of One
Sullivan Street
As a teenager, I did not have the patience or enough respect for music to focus on songs that were not "popular." For this reason, I did not grow to appreciate any of these three songs until around college. A little known fact about "A Murder of One" is that it was actually the forth and final released single from August. Since the first two singles were such massive hits, "Murder" fell by the wayside and faded into obscurity. "Sullivan Street", however, is an example of a very solid tier 2 song.
Tier 3 songs:
Anna Begins
Over the years I have had thousands of conversations with people (friends, family, acquiescence, strangers) about music. August and Everything After comes up more than any other CD, more than likely because it is my first album. Anyone that knows anything about nineties music is familiar with August and while everyone has their own personal favorite song, "Anna Begins" has been brought up an exceptional amount of times for a song with no radio time. Even if it isn't at the top of someone's list, I have never heard anything but positive reviews on "Anna." It kind of makes me laugh every time a bunch of guys are sitting around talking about "Anna Begins" because it is such a slow, melancholy song, and not the typical rock anthem that one would assume grown men would be discussing.
Tier 4 songs:
Round Here
Omaha
"Round Here" was a smash hit in the nineties and twenty years later, I still can not go a week or two without hearing it on the radio. If it wasn't for the success of its predecessor, "Round Here" would have been even more beloved; it is kind of like a step child, but a really pretty step child that you are not embarrassed of having. The opening track for the CD, "Round Here" starts with a guitar intro so recognizable that even Helen Keller would start singing "Step out the front door, like a ghost into a fog where no one notices the contrast to white on white."
A song has never made me want to visit the mid-west more than "Omaha." Let me rephrase that... NOTHING has ever made me want to visit the mid-west besides the song "Omaha." Sandwiched between two of the biggest songs of the nineties, "Omaha" doesn't disappoint. It is the perfect liaison making it more than acceptable to throw the CD in and press play. There was no need to hit the skip button until at least song four. "Omaha" was never released, but it was just as popular due to the fortunate, well deserved position in which it was located.
Tier 5 songs:
Rain King
Mr. Jones
I have a very difficult time thinking of a song more loved than "Mr. Jones." Seriously, have you ever heard of a single person in the entire world that does not like this song? It has been a jukebox favorite for twenty years and I still hear it about 90% of the times I frequent my favorite watering hole. (so about two times a year if you are reading this mom.)
The height of "Mr. Jones" popularity coincides with one of the most tragic moments in modern rock history: the death of Kurt Cobain. Cobain's death scared the hell out of Duritz and prompted the realization that things were beginning to spiral out of control. (Duritz has had some pretty major psychological issues since the success of August.)
The song is so popular that it actually helped name an entire generation. The term "Generation Jones" is used to describe people born between the years 1957-1966, and the founders of the term site "Mr. Jones" as an inspiration for the unique name.
"Rain King" is by far my favorite track on the album, and one of my favorite songs of all time. Simply put, it makes me happy. To be perfectly honest, I have no clue what the song is about, and I couldn't care any less. I actually am pretty sure it is not a song that is supposed to be "happy." Analyzing songs has never been my forte'.
"Don't try to bleed me... I've been here before and I deserve a little more."
I don't care who is bleeding, why they are bleeding, who is trying to bleed them, or what more they think they deserve, but i'll be damned if I can't sing along to this part with a huge smile on my face.
Mr. Jones
Excellent blog! Mr. Jones is one of the best songs of all time!
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