Mind of me

Palisades Park

by Kalvin Johnson

October 27, 2025

10/27/25 - 5:50pm Zushi, Japan

Palisades Park is a song by the band Counting Crows. I've talked about Counting Crows before but this was a song that I never really gotten into until just recently.

All I have to say is that this song is 110% a masterpiece and it is definitely one of the most best and profound things I've ever listened to. Some people perceive the song differently but I'll tell you how I see it.

I think the song is about two friends, who are spending their early years going through some wild shit, but in a good way. It goes through memories of wild drunken nights, heartbreak, and reflection. The person I think is looking back on his life, and realizing how those moments have shaped them to who they are today.

The song begins with a 1:30 minute intro of beautiful trumpets, which I'd imagine is what being in Palisades Park is like. It encapsulates how it's like to be there. It then picks up, something more cinematic, it contrasts with the slow intro of the song.

Emotionally, it feels like a memory, very slow and vivid. It's not told in a perfectly straight line, but going from memory to memory. There is a very melancholy feeling to it. The person is not bitter about what he has now, but he is kind of haunted by the fact that something so innocent and fun has passed. Those memories that have shaped this person to who he is now, are just memories. he can only remember them, he can't be there anymore and cannot relive them. The park acts as a metaphor for the good times and freedom that they experienced early in their lives. Back when reality wasn't a thing we thought about. Back when time was just a concept, and before heartbreak was a thing they experienced.

Now it's full swing, time has passed so fast but the memories are so far from what we see as the present.

Adam sings about running off, taking chances, and falling in love. It's filled with so much adrenaline and color and it's so fucking well done. Time's passed and now the color is just a reflection, the tone is softer, and now he is alone years later, wondering where what happened to the people that shaped him, wondering where it all went.

It's also about identity and change, how we will all eventually grow apart from the past versions we used to be. There's a sense of sadness, realizing that you can't relive those moments, even if they are so vivid in your head, like your still there but it's just in your head.

By the time he is older, he's alone because the wild memories he once experienced and his drifting life couldn't last forever. I don't thing any lasts forever to be honest. He's chased experiences, chased freedom, and love, but maybe never found a stable place or person to continue making memories that will last a lifetime. In youth, you think a moment will last forever, but you're just a kid. Even grown up, things sometimes just don't last forever.

There is emotional distance that comes with this person reflecting. This person is a watcher of his own memories, replaying them like films. He's older now, quieter, and maybe more wiser, but that innocence and wildness is still there. Back in the ay he was wild with his friends and they were wild with him too. He tries being wild, trying to relive a memory that is fading, but it isn't the same. He is surrounded by people who aren't wild, aren't free and this makes him sad, wondering why life isn't as free as it was before. He's not bitter about it though, just trying to understand how time slipped away so quickly.

It's not being physically lonely, it's about the solitude that comes with living with the big memories, and being left wondering what they meant at that time and whether they meant something or added up to something that would truly last forever.

Those memories still exist, it's just in the past not in the present. He's alone now because that what time is. It strips away the everything and leaves you face to face with not just the memories, but with yourself and the memories you've experienced.

Palisades Park doesn't just try to capture what this is like, it IS what it's like. You can't be young forever, and the loneliness can be so loud when filled with memory.

The song ends with the person, young and innocent in Palisades Park, a place that he associates with happiness and freedom. Then it dissolves into the same person, older, his eyes having a sense of wonder and sorrow, wondering why the place that supposed to be happiness, and freedom is no longer what he remembers. He took a train to Palisades Park just to find out it's not his memories, no one but him remembers what he remembers. He's alone, his friends are not there, he remembers Palisades Park as the memories he's experienced, his friends have moved on with life, but he hasn't, he wants what was before, but it will never be the same. His memories of Palisades Park are in his head, but are not living in the present, it's not real anymore.

If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts.

kj