Mrs. Potters Lullaby has a distinct Bob Seger sound and that can only be a good thing. It is steeped in music ‘Americana’ and to me is commensurate with the experience of watching a road trip movie in the cinema – breezy air and terrain – The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces (Field of Dreams).
Counting Crows is an American rock band from San Francisco, California. Formed in 1991, Counting Crows gained popularity following the release of its first album, August and Everything After (1993) and the breakthrough hit single Mr. Jones (1993).
In my last article – Prelude, Op. 28, No. 15 Raindrop (1838) – Frédéric Chopin, I quoted in the comments section Dylan’s lyric: ‘Fortune or fame, you must pick one or the other, though neither of them are to be what they claim.’ What do we have here in this song? See in the lyrics below: ‘Walking a tightrope of fortune and fame‘. That’s uncanny.
Well, I woke up in mid-afternoon ’cause that’s when it all hurts the most
I dream I never know anyone at the party and I’m always the host
If dreams are like movies
Then memories are films about ghosts
You can never escape
You can only move south down the coast
Well, I am an idiot
Walking a tightrope of fortune and fame
I am an acrobat swinging trapezes through circles of flame
If you’ve never stared off into the distance
Then your life is a shame
And though I’ll never forget your face
Sometimes I can’t remember my name
Hey, Mrs. Potter, don’t cry
Hey, Mrs. Potter, I know why
But, hey, Mrs. Potter, won’t you talk to me?
Most of the following was sourced from the Wikipedia articles below:
Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby is the second track on their third album, This Desert Life. The song reached number three on the US Billboard Adult Alternative Songs chart. In April 2022, American Songwriter ranked the song at number three on their list of “The Top 10 Counting Crows Songs“. The band’s frontman, Adam Duritz stated that the song was written about actress Monica Potter.
Duritz, who has based other songs on real people, explained that this song was influenced by an imaginary version of the actress, based on seeing her onscreen in Con Air (1997) and Patch Adams (1998). They ended up meeting for the first time at dinner with entertainment industry friends on the day the band was recording the song, and Potter returned to the studio with Duritz to watch them work. At the end of the session, a production assistant gave Potter a recording of one of the takes. Afterwards, Duritz told Potter the song was being dropped because over production after the recording session had ruined it. She gave him her copy, which was the fourth of eight takes that had been recorded while she was in the studio. This version was subsequently added to the album.
References:
1. Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby – Wikipedia
2. Counting Crows – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
I’ve always liked this band and wondered why they didn’t become mega huge…this is my number 1 song by them. Anyone that can mention a “tilt a whirl” in a song has my respect. The reason is when I was a kid…that is the only ride at the carnival that I really loved. I would line up for it…ride and get off…and ride again.
The imagery is awesome in this…
I know this song and ‘Mr Jones.’ I don’t know anything about them apart from that written above while researching the song.
The Bob Seger sound in this is so apparent at least to my ears. Yeh, I like the imagery this song evokes. I think the road trip movie analogy nails it, because even as he sings the song (from the outset), he mentions cinema and memories.
Now I have to look up what ‘Tilt a Whirl’ is. I want to be at a Carnival site and just ride my favourite sites over and over again with my kiddies. A bit like Perri did in the ‘Evergone’ video. God bless her.
The singer always reminded me a little of Van Morrison in Mr Jones. I thought it was Van when I heard Mr. Jones for the first time.
Oh I love Tilt a Whirls… I don’t like heights…this ride spins but not constantly…it’s a cool ride.
Oh yes, we have been on those ‘Tilt and Whirls’. My son and I prefer the more insane stuff, but yeh the ‘Tilt and Whirls’ is cool indeed.
I have to recall this story of my son and I at this big attraction water park located in Tolima, south of Bogota in the Jungle. It’s a place called Piscilago (Pool – Lake). Jesus was a little Tacka at the time, but I sensed he liked adrenalin rides, so I thought – let’s see what he’s made of. So, we climbed this really narrow walkway to get to the top (maybe 150 metres off the ground) where you face a really steep tube / toboggan slide to eventually spit you out on a ‘flask’ like shape to then rotate you and sink deep into the pool of water below. I’ll send a video of it below from YT.
Ok, so Jesus and I reached the top after about 30 minutes getting there. There were a lot of people. And as it was Jesus’ turn to descend the luge water tunnel, he suddenly refused to do it, out of fear. I told him he could not descend the narrow stairway because it was packed and I discerned it was clearly more dangerous his descending the stairway made for just one person ascending than two people abreast (no less a child) descending.
So, there wasn’t time. I did what any decent father would do after having weighed up the risks at the top of the ride with tens if not hundreds of people below waiting in anticipation for their turn. I picked up my traumatised son and launched him head -first into the luge of water for the steep descent. I then smartly followed him down the descent.
Of course, everything turned out great and he loved it despite him being an absolute mess at the top.
My God is it funny to recall about it now. I still think I had literally zero options available to me apart from pick him up despite his deluge of tears and utter horror and just throw him into this tunnel where he would probably reach a speed of 70km going down. I don’t know how much, but it was pretty f/8kingg fast.
LOL…I enjoyed that story.
Yea there was nothing else you could do really. I thought you were going to say you picked him up and weaved down but that was nearly impossible. Well that is like how I learned to swim….thrown in the water to sink or swim…I was swimming.
That probably helped his confidence also that he went down it and it wasn’t as bad as he thought.
That is fast! I had to translate it to MPH
It’s not a bad bit which I would like to post on one day, now that you inspired me. That’s it. It wasn’t as bad as he thought. To be honest I didn’t have a choice at the time when he refused. He had to go down.
I like those personal stories….I’ve posted a few personal stories also…it does help people to know you. I’ve posted some embarrasing stories also
I don’t believe I have seen any of your personal stories. I’ve written quite a few and put them in my ‘reflections’ menu. I think I’m going to draft that story – up I wrote to you, otherwise I will forget about it.
I got ya about stories. My embarrassing stories probably outnumber my gung-ho ones like that which I told you.
Oh yea…I wrote up one about prostitutes, pimp, and a VCR…and I wrote this one…when you have time…it’s too long though but to set it up I had to.
Going to read it now after seeing your Country’s draw with Holland in the World Cup.
The title is superb ‘Someone Who Really Didn’t Like Me’
Haven’t we all been there lol
Also you also get that guy who ignores you as well like the drummer you mentioned. That happened to me recently at my son’s soccer training whenone of the most social guys of the group totally ignored me after I said ‘Good morning to him’. But girl shrug offs are different for obvious reasons. Anyhows.
Dana sounds nice…But her brother was Chrissy’s boyfriend. That suxs right there. That’s bad kama. ‘Not a bad word was shared between us…not a word at all’ – which reminds me of that Dylan line.
LOL…yea I really liked Chrissy…Dana was nice and her parents liked me a lot. I was 24 at the time and she was 17… they told me they would rather her be with me than some 18 year old punk…. looking back…I was playing with fire.
He wasn’t nice at all…at least to me…of course I did see his girlfriend and then dated his sister…. to my credit though…I didn’t know the situation in both cases until I was already in it..
That’s one tough predicament.
I wrote a short one way back in 2015 called ‘The Magazine’. The article isn’t as funny as what the comments provoked:
Here’s the short article:
I remember when I was fifteen I was given a mangled Hustler magazine in which all the women’s breasts were the size of watermelons. So I took it home and stashed it. I had heard they were stroke-books, but I couldn’t really fathom that since my mother lived under the same roof. I did consult the magazine, mainly the plumpish New Orleans centerfold, who reminded me of my biology teacher when she sat on the lab bench dangling her legs apart, stretching her short skirt outwards. Suffice to say, students fumbled their pens more than usual.
But Tina my Filipina friend (who by the way did a great rendition of a Filipina song which I think you commented on) wrote in response to the Magazine article:
‘Judging by today’s standards, stroke books of the previous years were way classier and “artistic” than the ones today. Just saying.’
I responded:
Back in the 80’s you had to go out of your way just to get a peep. You had to know someone who knew someone who could relieve themselves of a jizz mag lol
That is good! Those books were gold back then to teens.
My brother in law had a stash of them and I knew every picture in there…plus…I will say this with a straight face…Playboy…DOES have good articles! As luck would have it Ringo Starr interviewed in that one…it was from 1976.
But the pictures are what I was interested in of course.
I didn’t frequent them often, but I remember them doing the rounds at school. There’s a hilarious Seinfeld episode where Jerry goes to the dentist, and he has suspicions that Tim Whatley (Dentist) and the Dental Nurse are getting kinky while Jerry is under the gas. When Tim Whatley takes a big whiff of the gas cracks me up every time. What’s interesting is someone of the crew of Seinfeld recommended he did it and so he did it and it made the scene better.
The real kicker is in the end scene when Kramer reads one of the Playboy stories and its seems uncannily similar to Jerry’s experience at the Dentist.
You have a good day Max.
I was looking up things on Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad and I saw that interview you are talking about. That was hilarious. I have all of the Seinfields but I haven’t watched them in a long time…its probably time again.
When we were subscribed to Netflix, my kids (13 and 7 year old mind you) would watch Seinfeld incessantly. I thought you could have a worse education growing up. I mean… even I had to tell them to stop watching it.
I saw the first seasons of Breaking Bad. I really liked the early seasons. I struggled with it in later seasons as I didn’t find any redeeming characters. It’s a bit like how I recall the South Korean movie ‘Parasite’ which won best Oscar movie. Ummm???
The whole concept is fascinating, but the lack of (ANY) likeable characters left me cold, frankly.
Yea Breaking Bad…I understand completely. By the end…Jesse was the only one halfway sympathetic…he wasn’t at first but grew a little. I watched The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Sopranos around 3 years ago for the first time…all of them back to back to back.
The Wire and the Sopranos are two series I wished I had seen. May be one day. Nice how you saw all three of them in order like that.
The Sopranos is the one out of the three that had the longer impact.
Oh…I’m watching an intelligent show right now…Matt I’m always late to watching shows or bands. I mean my favorite band is The Beatles.
I just got finished watching House MD…terrific show! I wish I could act like that guy just one day of my life…be an ass but accepted lol.
Yeh the Sopranos. I think the Wire is noted for its accuracy, realism and detail.
I believe I have read your writing about the Beatles before…somewhere haha
I imagine there are so many medics like that guy in House MD.
I wrote an article about an interview Peter Attia did with Chris Sonnenday M.D. You commented on that article regarding your friend with diabetes.
I think apart from Peter Attia’s first interview with Joe Rogan about his experiences as an ER doctor, the interview below by Attia with Chris Sonnenday is the closest thing I’ve ever felt to being fully immersed into what they actually do and how they think and act.
Their ‘smarts’, dedication and humility left me in complete awe.
I just talked to Paul my friend last week…he is still doing good. He is so happy not to have to take shots…he has been doing that since he was a kid.
With House…here is the question the show is built around. Would you care if the doctor that is treating you didn’t care at all about you? He just liked solving the puzzle of what is wrong. Would you care as long as you are cured or treated? Would it make a difference?
I’m glad your friend Paul is still going good after the transplants…back to House. Hmm.
‘House’ is fiction man. I’d prefer to watch the real deal. As you know, when COVID was happening; solving the puzzle by MD’s was outlawed (like House’s disposition) if it wasn’t commensurate with the Scientific / Political agenda.
Yea the thing I like though…all the medical stuff is based on real cases,,,
I’ve watched those medical docs at times…like the UK ER’s and America….
I didn’t know that about real cases incorporated into House stories. So not fiction exactly and you saw ER docs. I’m always learning and sometimes I put up my hand of ignorance of a subject. This is one such time Haha
Yea…they were rare cases…sometimes really rare but the medical stuff was right. Thats not why I watch it though…he is a fascinating character…anti social…. which would suit me fine at work lol.
Excellent