Angels of Silences Meaning

Angels of the Silences is one of the songs I originally overlooked on the album Recovering the Satellites. At the time, I really liked the Counting Crows more melancholy songs and AotS is fast paced, fast moving song.

However, when I went back and listens to the lyrics, the songs really works. It has a message that can be sung in a slow paced self reflective song or a fast beat semi-angry rant.

From Adam Duritz and the Counting Crows Storytellers on June 7, 1999:

"I write quite a few songs where the sort of issue is faith, having faith, keeping faith

and this song in particular is about the difficulty in having faith in things

and finding things to have faith in, in yourself, in God, in like he said, in a woman

Faith is a weird thing, it in a sense it is all about waiting

It's not actually about getting anything, you know

Faith is about the wait because once you get something there is no need anymore

and so a lot about faith is just the willingness to sort of throw yourself on a fence 

and hang there for a while

That's a very difficult and bitter thing, you know

In this song the, I keep saying the main character, 'I'

I said, 'All my sins, I would pay for them if I could come back to you' 

It's not just about finding things to believe in

It's about wanting to be able to believe in anything too

And it's about all the voices that get inside your head 

and whisper for you to do it or not to do it as well

And it's called "Angels of the Silences" 

Angels of the Silences Versions

I will admit that when  Recovery the Satellites, debuted I didn't love it as much as I did August and Everything After. I will also admit to this day that AaEA is still my favorite album. However, I have a new appreciation of the Counting Crows second album.

My earlier impressions were that the album just sounded different from the first, and I was looking for more melancholy songs such as Sullivan Street and Anna Begins.

The sound of the band changed in second album mainly because they added second guitarist. The added sound can be clearly heard throughout RtS. The second track on the album is Angels of the Silences. It was a completely different song than say Round Here of the first album.

I began to listen to the song more and more.  Then I started watching the video. I began to love the song more and more. I  loved the simplicity of the video of them in concert just singing. The song's pace and lyrics are almost a perfect match with Adam's honest words as well as the band heavy hitting music.

In live versions of the song, the band has tuned down the strength and made an acoustic version. The best example of this is Across a Wire - Live in New York Disc 1. Although the volume of the song is different the meaning and lyrics does not differ in each version  My favorite lyrics from the song has to be:  "All my sins, I said that I would pay for them if I could come back to you"

Below are both versions of the Angels of the Silences

Recovering the Satellites version

Across A Wire version