Thus armed, I set off to conduct my analysis of Iconically Counting Crows Elements, hoping to answer the question: What is, lyrically, the most Counting Crows-ish of all Counting Crows songs?

Friday is the 25th anniversary of the song’s release, and the Counting Crows happen to play Stir Cove on Thursday. “Omaha,” the album’s second track, was actually written years earlier.

It might be hard to imagine, but for a time in the 1990s Counting Crows was maybe the biggest band in the world. Lead singer Adam Duritz was singing his emotional, poetic lyrics while dating some ...