Before Counting Crows became famous, the band circulated a demo tape that set off a bidding war among record companies. Most of the songs were rerecorded with T-Bone Burnett at the controls and appeared on their breakout 1993 LP “August and Everything After,” but this one was left out, apparently because upbeat jangle-pop didn’t fit the downbeat vibe of the rest of the album. So when the record company asked for a tune it could include on a sampler CD, Adam Duritz let them have this one, probably the least-gloomy thing he’s ever written.
He soon regretted it. The record company thought it heard a hit, and for once the suits weren’t wrong — it reached No. 1 on the alternative airplay chart. The band, fearing public backlash from overexposure (Duritz cited Hootie and the Blowfish as an example), didn’t make a video, and performed it only once in concert back in their pre-fame days in San Francisco. No matter — the band got overexposed and was soon scorned as uncool, a status it never really recovered from.
Duritz spent years disliking the song, which he dismissed as “a goof,” but eventually conceded he still listens to it because he likes the harmonies.
