It’s like my wildest dream coming true, really.  First Bruce announces a new album and tour, and now Counting Crows?  Within a month of each other?  Someone pass the smelling salts, I may faint from the excitement.

The new album, Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation) will be released on April 10th.  You can pick up the first single, “Mercy,” from the Counting Crows website right now in exchange for your e-mail address.  According to the band’s blog, it’s 15 songs by other artists redone by Counting Crows.  Artists include Travis, Dawes, Bob Dylan, Pure Prairie League (“Amie” – a song that CC recorded a few years ago) and Big Star (“The Ballad of El Goodo,” which has floated around on several CC bootlegs for years).

“Mercy,” originally by CC band member Dan Vickrey’s other music project Tender Mercies, is a barroom confessional, resplendent with crying guitar riffs and Adam’s whiskey-drenched vocal, begging mercy to follow him.  I love, love, love it.  If it’s a sign of what’s to come on the album, I am going to be a very, very, very happy girl come April!