It was probably 1996 when I first got a copy of “August and Everything After”. When I heard “Mr Jones”, I remembered a friend back home talking about it in early 1995 after MTV had first made its appearance in India, through Star TV from Hong Kong. I didn’t pay it too much attention. I was listening to other music.

In any case, when I finally started listening, it wasn’t to Mr Jones. Mr Jones wasn’t bad at all. Fun, bouncy music. with just that touch of wistful wanting. to be someone else. someone famous. It was all the other songs. “Anna begins”. “Perfect Blue Buildings”. “Sullivan Street”.

It was a lonely time for me. Depressing. And “August” became my companion. For months, if not a few years. Over and over again. Interestingly, it did not relieve the depression. It almost legitimized it. Almost like people pair wine with cheese, the Counting Crows and depression paired really well together, each accentuating the other.

I can honestly say that I have been depressed since fifteen or sixteen. It’s been really bad at times, and then it’s been low-grade background noise the rest of the time, and late twenties, it was the Counting Crows, depression and me. hand in hand. I went out and bought their other albums – “Recovering the satellites” and “This Desert Life” by then. Then there was “Hard Candy” in 2002. And all the songs were absolute masters of melancholy from my perspective.

Then, in the early thirties, the fog sort of lifted after a chance reading of a few pages out of a book about depression. It said that my depression was a choice, and I could choose differently. Something my wife (and actually a friend way back in my teens) had been saying for a while. It kind of clicked.

One of the first things I did at that point was put away all my Counting Crows music. I knew that the moment I heard even one of those songs, it would suck me back into that dark period. I have stayed “sober” for a few decades now. The depression lingers on, but it’s manageable.

But the lure of the Counting Crows, just like the Sirens from the Odyssey call out to me every now and then. And the melodies, the words, the mood are all right on point after all these years. I listen to a song now and then. It’s like allowing myself a cigarette. I have never physically smoked anything in my life, but I imagine it’s similar. I let my mind drift to those days, the bitter-sweet memories of what was, and what could have been.

Then I pick myself back up, and come back to the real world. But I’m still afraid of the Counting Crows and where their music hits me.