“Counting Blue Cars” by Dishwalla

"Counting Blue Cars (Tell Me Your Thoughts on God)" is the song that made Dishwalla, the standout from their 1995 A&M debut, Pet Your Friends, produced by Andy Kravitz. The writing credit is split five ways, but singer J. R. Richards says he knocked it out fast, as the story of a young boy's spiritual journey, sparked by a real conversation with his 10-year-old neighbor and by the question of why God always has to be a he.

It's a slow, patient build, chiming guitars circling a kid's-eye puzzle until the chorus opens wide. It turned out to be their only hit, but a big one: it went to number 15 on the Hot 100, topped Billboard's Modern Rock chart, and ASCAP honored it in both 1997 and 1998 for racking up more American radio plays than anything else.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.