Counting Crows is currently on tour with Dashboard Confessional in their Banshee Season Tour. At one of their most recent stops, Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, the band decided to play a Taylor Swift cover. But for those who closely follow Counting Crows, this should be no surprise, as lead singer Adam Duritz has recently found a deep appreciation for the female pop idol. Several months ago in an interview with Nuvo Duritz said:
“For the last few weeks, I’ve honestly been listening to a lot of Taylor Swift. I was a big fan of her first couple of records, but I hadn’t listened too much since then. My girlfriend is a really huge fan, though, and I got us all tickets to see the show.”
They chose to cover “The 1” which is from Swift’s 2020 album Folklore. It has a breezy, sentimental feel, piano, light percussive claps, and a muted country-esque guitar line in the background. Like the rest of the album, it feels very acoustic and light. But in Counting Crows’ hands, it sounded more like a mournful, original ballad. Duritz played the piano, while another member of the group added in an unexpected timbre: accordion! It’s not until the very end that we hear the full band come in with mandolin, bass, guitar, and drums.
For more great T-Swift covers, be sure to check out this link!