PREMIERE: Maria Taylor Enlists Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz for “Waiting in Line”

The single precedes the Azure Ray songwriter’s seventh solo album, out November 11.
PREMIERE: Maria Taylor Enlists Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz for “Waiting in Line”

The single precedes the Azure Ray songwriter’s seventh solo album, out November 11.

Words: Dean Brandt

photo by Liz Bretz

October 24, 2019

While Maria Taylor hasn’t been quite as busy as she was last decade—as one half of Azure Ray, as a member of Now It’s Overhead, and as a solo artist often duetting with fellow Saddle Creek artists like Conor Oberst and Cursive’s Tim Kasher—she certainly hasn’t disappeared. With plenty of solo material released over the past ten years, her music has additionally popped up in network TV programs ranging from Grey’s Anatomy to Parenthood.

Most recently, the songwriter appears to be gearing up for a new chapter in her musical career by finally dropping a self-titled LP, which features an array of guests she’s befriended over her career in addition to her own family (her seven-year-old son wrote and performed the track “Miley’s Song”). One such guest is Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz, who cameos on the piano-charged ballad “Waiting in Line,” which, lyrically, offers insight into Taylor’s outlook on her career moving forward.

“‘Waiting in Line’ is a song about knowing the right time to walk away,” she says. “For me, this was about my relationship with the music industry. Before letting go of something, there’s a feeling in your gut that maybe there’s something waiting around the corner…something that makes it worth holding on to a little longer. To me this song is the equivalent of walking outside on the day you are moving to a new city and there is this beauty you have never seen before in all your years of living there and you wonder, ‘maybe it’s not time, just yet.’”

Stream the track and browse Taylor’s sparse upcoming tour schedule. Maria Taylor is out November 11 via Flower Moon Records—you can pre-order it here.

NOV. 8 – New York, NY @ Underwater Sunshine Festival, Rockwood Music Hall
NOV. 16 – Birmingham, AL @ Moonstone Festival
DEC. 7 – Los Angeles, CA @ South Pasadena Masonic Lodge