Sucka Free: Counting Crows

There’s a piece of maria in every song that I sing

Adam Duritz, the lead singer and songwriter of Counting Crows has been agonising over Maria for four albums. Though his lyrics, full of beautiful losers and heartbroken heartbreakers, have given us an aching array of heroes and heroines, the mystique surrounding Maria makes her stand out from the crowd of... you know what, I am just going to list a few:

The legendary Anna (“Every time she sneezes I believe it’s love”); Carrie, who practices ballet in the basement “with the girl in the mirror, who spins as she spins”; Marjorie who is “just trying to be a good girl”; the girl he called Mercury (“a victim of her own responses”) who made him think “it’s a sin to be fading endlessly”; the girl he called Monkey and asked “What’s life without an occasional surprise?”; Amy (“every time it rains she just feels a lot better”) and Elisabeth the Queen of California…

But Maria, she stays with you like a scar left over from some painful time that has grown familiar and friendly, from the first time we meet her (“Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand, she says she’d like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis) to all those songs and albums later when Adam tells us that through all the lost and longing loners and lovers she has been with us.

This is from August and Everything After: the handwritten lyrics were used to decorate the cover of their first album, but the song was never released. We couldn’t see the full text, and for years the song was like a Holy Grail for Counting Crows fans. Eventually Adam capitulated and played it.

“They’re waking up Maria, cos every body has some place to go
She makes a
little motion with her head, says she’s gonna sleep for a couple minutes more
I’ve said I’m sorry to Maria for all the cruel cold-hearted things that I’ve
done
I’ve said I’m sorry, by now, at least once, to just about every one.”