Catapult

Duritz Does Confusion again! Amazing. I listened to this song smack in the middle of my teenage years, and it was just one of those things that spoke to me. No idealism, no easy answers, not even an identifiable problem. It's all about insecurities - "There's little things about me that would sing in the silence of so much rejection." He's obviously been rejected, and the worst part is, he can't figure out quite why ("All of a sudden she disappears, just yesterday she was here"). And through it all, he hears all these romantic stories about What Should Be ("I wanna be the last thing that you hear when you're falling asleep"); and wonders why the hell he can't feel that way. It's about the futility of trying to get someone else to know and love you when you don't even know or love yourself yet.

This song is about not being sure if you're going to make it through what lies ahead. Adam wrote it after Kurt Cobain's death and after he sort of freaked out a little.

in my opinion it is the best CC song ever after Round Here. The lyrics are amazing, with so much deepeer meaning after the surface. Lines like 'I wanna be the last thing that you hear when you're falling asleep' are so good (especially live), but have a bazillion more times meaning for fans. It's just amazing

Great intro song. I agree with the Kurt Cobain inspiration for this song. Adam went from this small scene in Berkley to being one of the biggest rock stars in the world. That has to change you. Then he saw Kurt Cobain who seemed like he had it all, and Kurt couldn't deal with it and killed himself. I think the lyrics fit Adam's fears about the future stardom and beyond. He did freak out and took time off and ended up a bartender at the Viper Room when they came off tour. "What a big baby won't somebody save me please You won't find nobody home" The "oh poor rock star" idea. Adam got accused of wining after he actually got success. Most people thought August was about wanting to be that big star, see Mr. Jones, and RTS was about dealing with the fame now that it has come. That's right to some degree, but the albums are just so different. RTS is so raw and emotional and is my favorite still after 14 years. The songs are just these amazing emotional statements. I just found an old video of the making of RTS and it blew me away. They filmed a documentary while recording and there are some fabulous interviews about the album.

I love the version of this song from the Across A Wire album. During the end of the song, Adam sings it with so much raw emotion. It's like you can actually feel his heart breaking while he sings it. All his words are sung with so much power and pain, and it makes it one of my top 3 Counting Crows songs. I think this song's about Adam's desire to feel any emotion whatsoever, and his desire to be someone different than who he is. That's just my opinion, though.

that's a pretty sweet comment... however, i'm still lost on lines like "i wanna be the light that burns out your eyes" and "i wanna be the knife that cuts into my hand"... one of the themes in the song is what Duritz wants... a short list: not to be alone to cut his own hand to be scattered from "here" not to "bring you down" to burn out "your" eyes to be that romantic ideal ballzofsno talks about the stuff about being lonely and wanting to escape and still to be with the person he cares about without bringing her down all kinda meshes, but then there's the mean streak... kind of a non-sequitur...

Sharkyy, 90% of Adam's lyrics are extremely sad songs disguised as simply calm and melancholy words. Anyway, I think what REALLY makes this song is the opening with the flute. That is one of the most beautiful intros to a song EVER!

Actually for the record my last dying wish is to have my corpse loaded into a giant catapult and be fired into a a huge sheet of clear plastic, for 'comedy splat effect'. The notion of 'comedy sliding down plastic slowly' also fills me with glee.

it's not a flute, it is a keyboard, but, my god, what an intro

This is the only Counting Crows song that I've ever really liked - and it's a corker. I've always misheard the 'falling asleep' line as "I want to be the last thing that you hear when you fall", which sounded incredibly dramatic and has never failed the hairs-standing-on-end test, so I'm a bit ambivalent to find that I was wrong. I can't understand why this track isn't on the 'Best Of' album, as far as I'm concerned it's their finest moment.