Round Here

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (August 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

"Round Here"
Single by Counting Crows
from the album August and Everything After
Released	1994
Genre	Alternative rock
Length	5:32
Label	Geffen
Songwriter(s)	Steve Bowman, David Bryson, Adam Duritz, Charlie Gillingham, Matt Malley, Dave Janusko, Dan Jewett, Chris Roldan
Producer(s)	T-Bone Burnett
Counting Crows singles chronology
"Mr. Jones" (1993) "Round Here" (1994) "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)" (1994)

"Round Here" was released in 1994 from Geffen Records as the second single from the Counting Crows' debut album, August and Everything After (1993). The song's origin pre-dates the formation of Counting Crows, when the band's future frontman Adam Duritz wrote the song with The Himalayans members Dan Jewett, Chris Roldan and Dave Janusko.^[1]

Although not as successful as their previous single, "Mr. Jones", "Round Here" became another hit for the band in the United States and Canada. Despite not charting on the US Billboard Hot 100 due to rules in place at the time, it peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart, number seven on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, number 10 on the Mainstream Top 40 and number 11 on the Album Rock Tracks chart. In Canada it peaked at number six on the RPM Top Singles chart and was the 57th most successful song of 1994. The song also reached the top 20 in Iceland, peaking at number 12.

Song meaning[]

This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry. Please help improve the article by presenting facts as a neutrally worded summary with appropriate citations. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote or, for entire works, to Wikisource. (August 2019)

Duritz explained on VH1 Storytellers the meaning to the song:

The first way Counting Crows ever sounded, it was me and Dave in bars and coffee houses playing open mics, doing this song this way. The song begins with a guy walking out the front door of his house, and leaving behind this woman. But the more he begins to leave people behind in his life, the more he feels like he's leaving himself behind as well. The less and less substantial he feels like he's becoming to himself. And that's sorta what the song's about because he feels that even as he disappears from the lives of people, he's disappearing more and more from his own life. The chorus is, he sorta keeps screaming out these idioms these lessons that your mother might say to you when you were a kid, sorta child lessons ya know, "round here we always stand up straight", "carving out our names". Things that you are told when you are a kid that you do these things that.. that when you're grown up it'll add up to something, you'll have a job, you'll have a life. I think for me and the character of the song they don't add up to anything, it's just a bunch of crap kinda. Your life comes to you or doesn't come to you, but those things don't really mean anything. By the end of the song he's so dismayed by this that he's kinda screaming out that he can stay up as long as he wants and that no one makes him wait...the sort of things that are important if you are a kid. You know that you don't have to go to bed, you don't have to do anything. The sort of things that don't make any difference at all when you're an adult, they're nothing. And uh and uh this is a song about, about me.

In a concert in Amsterdam for "This Desert Life", on October 17, 1999,^[2] Duritz adds,

We wrote this song in 1989 ... We were all in bands and we had shitty jobs. We would wash dishes, work in record stores and wash windows and ... by day, so that we can be in a rock and roll band at night. You know? And it was after college and our friends are getting on with their lives. And they had good jobs, well... boring jobs... but they made more money than we did, and they had futures and we didn't. And there comes a point in the life of everyone in a rock and roll band that you have to sort of decide, am I going to do this with my life, or am I going to go get one of those other jobs? Because I can't deal with washing dishes anymore and I can't dig any more holes, and I can't wash another window. And there is those that go, and there is those that stay. And you walk out on the edge of the world and you balance yourself there for a while and you try to figure out just which one you're gonna be. And a lot of our friends are doing other things right now. And we're standing right up here on this stage.

Composition[]

The Counting Crows version (the more well-known recording) is a slow and mellow folk rock song. The original by the Himalayans is done in a more "pure" rock style—somewhat harder and faster, with prominent electric guitar and bass parts. In a tradition that has manifested in several Counting Crows songs, the two versions of this song feature somewhat different lyrics. Various live recordings of the song also feature significantly altered lyrics.

Track listings[]

1. "Round Here" - 5:32
2. "Ghost Train" - 4:01
3. "The Ghost in You" (Previously Unreleased)

Australia single

1. "Round Here"(LP Version) - 5:28
2. "Rain King"(Live) - 5:12
3. "The Ghost in You"(Live) - 3:30

UK single^[3]

1. "Round Here"(LP Version) - 5:28
2. "Ghost Train"(LP Version) - 4:01
3. "The Ghost In You"(Live and previously unreleased) - 3:30

Charts[]

In popular culture[]

• Lyrics from the song are referenced by band The Gaslight Anthem in their song "High Lonesome" from the album The '59 Sound.
• Dustin Kensrue of the band Thrice has covered the song live.^[14]
• Kasey Chambers covered the song on her single "Nothing at All".
• Panic! at the Disco has covered this song live many times.^[15]
• David Ford occasionally plays this live.^[16]
• Josh Ramsay of the band Marianas Trench (band) has sampled this song live.^[17]

References[]

External links[]

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics