Album: August And Everything After (1993)

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• Just down the street from your hotel, baby
  I stay at home with my disease
  And ain't this position familiar, darling
  Well, all monkeys do what they see
  Help me stay awake, I'm falling
  
  Down on Virginia and La Loma
  Where I got friends who'll care for me
  You got an attitude of everything I ever wanted
  I got an attitude of need
  Help me stay awake, I'm falling
  
  Asleep in perfect blue buildings
  Beside the green apple sea
  Gonna get me a little oblivion
  Try to keep myself away from me
  
  It's 4:30 a.m. on a Tuesday
  It doesn't get much worse than this
  In beds in little rooms in buildings in the middle
  of these lives which are completely meaningless
  Help me stay awake, I'm falling
  
  Asleep in perfect blue buildings
  Beside the green apple sea
  I wanna get me a little oblivion, baby
  I'm trying to keep myself away from myself and me
  
  I got bones beneath my skin, and mister
  There's a skeleton in every man's house
  Beneath the dust and love and sweat that hangs on everybody
  There's a dead man trying to get out
  So please, help me stay awake, I'm falling
  
  Asleep in perfect blue buildings
  Beside the green apple seas
  I wanna get me a little oblivion baby
  Try to keep myself away from me
  
  Perfect blue buildings, oh
  Beside the green apple sea
  I wanna get me a little oblivion, baby
  And try to keep myself away from myself and me
  Oh, in a perfect blue building
  Well, I can't keep myself away from me
  Oh, in a perfect blue building
  
  I say, how am I gonna keep myself away?
  How am I gonna keep myself away from me?
  Keep myself away, how am I gonna keep myself away from me?
  Keep myself away, how am I gonna keep myself away from me? Writer/s: ADAM FREDRIC DURITZ, BEN G MIZE, CHARLES THOMAS GILLINGHAM, DANIEL JOHN VICKREY, DAVID LYNN BRYSON, MATTHEW MARK MALLEY, STEVE BOWMAN
  Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 9

• Bob Snikta from VirginiaAll songs are written and sung to make your own when you listen to them. The time was 1994, North Beach San Francisco and I had flown to the city to help out a friend in his last day as battling AIDS. His days were spent in sterile blue rooms of the hospital and yes.. there was an apple green ocean outside his window. He had seen the Counting Crows in live concert and this was his favorite song from them. I really didn't know anything about the Counting Crows, didn't particularly care for their music, but this song absolutely could have been sung about my friend's last days. I can still see him saying to me while listening to this song, "there are worse places to die than San Francisco." And he was so so right. For you Ned....someday we will ride those waves again.
• Bobby from SfHe misses home and references the cross streets Virginia and La Loma in Berkeley
• Cherry Bradshaw from Knoxville,tnI think this song is definitely about drug addiction, in particular heroin. He stays at home with his disease which is heroin addiction. Help me stay awake I'm falling. But then after nodding off the pain is interrupted by dreaming of blue buildings next to the green sea. When he said there's a deadman trying to get out I think that is referring to the desire to kill oneself and help me stay awake I'm falling is please help me not commit suicide don't let me take myself out. And how do I keep myself away from me is just crushing to me. Those of us who have ever experienced any kind of addiction whether it be drugs, food, shopping, or a relationships, we know that we are so often our own worst enemy. And finally, I think the little rooms might be shooting galleries where people go to shoot up. Because how could you say every life in a hotel is meaningless...
• Shaun Bruner from Murfreesboro, TnCounting Crows has always been my favorite band and their music only becomes more relevant and enriched as the years go on. But this song in particular had a lot of meaning to me as a teenager in high school when I was diagnosed with narcolepsy (uncontrollable sleep and/or fatigue) and it was at its worst. I could sleep away entire days and never feel rested, just that my days flitted away and I felt helpless when the waves of sleep would pull me under. I felt like a prisoner in my own body, always feeling the sleep waiting behind my eyelids and knew it was only a matter of time until the next attack. "I stay at home with my disease", "Gonna get me a little oblivion, Try to keep myself away from myself and me.""Help me stay awake, I'm falling..." reminds me of occasionally "narc-ing out" mid-sentence as my head nods forward.I began to hate sleep and saw it merely as time being stolen from me and my life. "It doesn't get much worse than this In beds in little rooms in buildings in the middle of these lives which are completely meaningless."Nowadays it's not as dramatic as it once was and I'm on better medication, but what was once another sad and pretty song by favorite band only became a song that really resonated with something I was going through during a rough time. Thank you Counting Crows for changing with me through the years and always knowing what to say.
• Thomas from San Diego, CaThe counting Crows are from SF. The Blue Lady of Half Moon Bay - San Francisco, California
  During the 1920s, some of the Hollywood elite would find escape from prohibition along the coast of California at an elite speakeasy known as Frank's Place which was located along Moss Beach on Half Moon Bay near San Francisco. The club was owned by Frank Torez and although prohibition was in effect, his club would readily serve alcohol. For some reason Frank's Place was never raided by police and some of California's upper class including stars of Hollywood were often seen there. It seems that one of these regulars however, still call it home.
  The perfect blue buildings still lie beside that green apple sea. A sanitarium where oblivion calms. just a tune to hum.
• Shadow from Depression, VaThis is my fav CC song, I believe the "perfect blue buildings" are like suburban life, as in so many people are happy living their lives in these perfect blue buildings. And in the song his girlfriend who lives with him is angry at him, so she went to a hotel to get away from him.
• Lisa from Philadelphia-ish, PaAlso, he does not refer to perfect blue buildings as hotels. The only mention of hotels is in the line "just down the street from your hotel, baby, i stay at home with my disease..." Don't know how the song relates to breaking up with his girl and her being angry. Or wanting to sleep. "Help me stay awake, i'm falling..."
• Lisa from Philadelphia-ish, PaOne of my favorite songs. According to Adam himself, "The verses are about how horrifyingly gray and mundane and pointless life in general can be. Nothing catastrophic. Little horrors. Envy of other people. Deep need that is unsatisfied. Boredom. And so the chorus is about how seductive coma-visions are: these dreams of placidity, colors, shapes that are so clean. But the peace is a trap to the person in the song; he doesn't want to fall prey to the visions."
  
  
• Raven from Portland, Ori actually love this song. this song was actually not about hotels. or about being on the road. he refers to "perfect Blue buildings" as hotels, but it was because he broke up with his girlfriend at the time and she was angry. he was taking drugs, and he wanted to sleep. he was also near cannon beach when he wrote this...
  i knew him personally.

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