Blue Hotel February 20, 2009

You know, I’m more than just a little ashamed to say I’ve actually never heard Willie Nelson’s recording of this song. I imagine it sounds great, since Ryan wrote it for Willie, but I just never really got around to finding a recording anywhere.  I have to say, though, I really enjoy the sound.  It reminds me of “Let Us Down Easy” from Cardinology in more ways than one, and part of me thinks “Blue Hotel” definitely influenced, if not inspired, the latter.  The recording found on Follow The Nights is pretty good, but there are some absolutely stellar live versions out there.  I found one that I particularly enjoyed on YouTube and posted the link at the bottom of the post here.

It’s smooth and bluesy, but has that classic Cardinals twang.  Sure, it may have been written for another musician, but you can really tell that it’s a Ryan Adams song.  There’s something about the way he sets up each line in his verses that no one else can reproduce.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTkdMOT6-_U&feature=related

My Love For You Is Real February 10, 2009

I really enjoyed Follow The Lights more than most people, I think.  The two truly new songs gave us a peek at a very different Ryan Adams and the Cardinals than we had seen on Easy Tiger.  While that album had a lot of pretty intense moments, this material presented a band who were writing songs that were much more relaxed and peaceful sounding.  I feel like these are the first songs that could be listed as “The Cardinals”, due to the fact that they play a much bigger role in it than previously.  Especially in “My Love For You Is Real”, where the backing vocals weave in and out, working well with the CSNY-esque music.

While “Follow The Lights” can be praised for carrying a great message and being charmingly simple, “My Love For You Is Real” is almost the opposite.  My favorite part is when the reverb-laden, distorted electric guitar chords get thrown in the middle of the mix near the end.  I don’t know that they’ve done this song live, but I feel like it carries the potential for some nice jamz… (with a z!)

Down In A Hole January 13, 2009

During the spring semester of my freshman year, I worked in a local record shop.  It was a really cool job, but I ended up leaving after my schedule conflicted with a series of Wilco shows I had been planning on attending for several months.  I always had discussions with my co-workers about what was good/awful, and this song eventually came up.  One guy I always worked with was a HUGE Alice In Chains fan and said that no one could come close to feeling Layne Staley’s sadness, therefore no one could put the same emotion into the recording.  I’ll have you know that one night, the Ryan Adams cover of “Down In A Hole” came on XM and convinced him otherwise. 

This was one of the few new songs on Follow The Lights, and a great addition at that.  He had been performing it on his promo run for Easy Tiger, and it only made sense that it would be released somewhere.  I’ll be honest, this might be the strongest of the new songs on the EP.  “My Love For You Is Real” is boring and “Blue Hotel” just never really grabbed me.  “Follow The Lights” gives it a run for its money, I guess…  All this talk about the EP makes me want something that’ll hold me over until “Dear Impossible.”

Mockingbirdsing January 11, 2009

I’ve mentioned on this blog before that my favorite Ryan Adams album is Love Is Hell.  It seems like it’s a pretty common favorite album, rivaled by Cold Roses.  Well, I’ll let you know that my favorite Ryan Adams song right now is from the latter, and it’s today’s song. 

“Mockingbirdsing” is odd for several reasons.  First, it contains religious imagery, which is uncommon in Ryan Adams’ writing.  Quite a few fans were put off by “Born Into A Light” for that reason, but I’ve never heard any complaints about Mockingbirdsing.  The vocals are also quite different from other songs in the Ryan Adams catalog.  They’re hushed and mumbled at times, with very clear backing vocals.  Speaking of those backing vocals, I think this song features the best performance by Catherine Popper during her time in the Cardinals.  She absolutely NAILS “I feel dead inside and dying” and the last “love her in the ways you want to be loved.”  The other day I mentioned how much I appreciate Neal Casal’s backing vocals on the version of “Dear John” released on Follow The Lights.  Well, that’s exactly how I feel about Catherine Popper’s contribution to this song. 

The lyrics aren’t that different from his other songs, really.  It’s more reflection on love and life with a pinch of faith thrown in there.  The chorus is unusual in that it totally drops out before it picks the song up.  There’s some obvious gospel influence in the “Love her in the way you want to be loved” part right before it goes alt-country on you again.  It’s a really nice, peaceful song (and one of my favorites to listen to while driving).

Dear John January 10, 2009

This song has been the cause of quite a few debates between Ryan Adams fans, and I’m always looking forward to getting in the middle of it.  Of course, the song was first released on Jacksonville City Nights with a guest appearance by its co-writer, Norah Jones.  I wasn’t too crazy about it until I heard it live, with soaring harmonies courtesy of Neal Casal.  I was absolutely blown away…  A while later, when I was reading that the band would be releasing an EP with older songs re-recorded, the fact that they were going to do a live-in-the-studio take of “Dear John” had me sold. 

While I definitely do admire Norah Jones’ writing abilities, I really just wasn’t impressed by her vocals on the album version.  It’s a very emotional song, and I felt like her voice was too tame and subdued on it.  While the Cardinalized version sounds like someone weeping, the recording with Norah Jones is someone who’s managing to hold it all in.  I feel like the version on Follow The Lights also features what is simply a better vocal performance by Ryan.  It seemed like he struggled a little bit when recording the harmonies, but when he’s performing the lower notes, it sounds much better.

But, then again, I just really like Neal’s voice.  His voice seems to compliment RA’s perfectly, on the recordings and during live performances.  His singing on “Dear John” is cathartic and wistful, something I feel Norah Jones just wasn’t able to produce.  I can’t say I’ve heard any pre-Neal live performances of the song, so I’d be interested to hear how you think they compare… (I’m assuming Catherine Popper did Neal’s part)

Neal Casal solo cover of “Dear John”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXU8OyWwfmc

If I Am A Stranger December 29, 2008

“If I Am A Stranger” is one of my favorite Ryan Adams songs for several reasons.  Apart from the great recorded versions on Cold Roses and the Follow The Lights EP (there’s a similar version that appears as a B-Side to “Now That You’re Gone”), its lyrics perfectly describe feelings of doubt.  The song’s hook is an open question that never gets answered: “I will try to be there for you if I can/What if I can’t?” 

There are several other questions that come up throughout the song, none of them being answered.  It’s difficult to know if love is real, especially if the relationship is suffering from feelings of fear and doubt.  One thing you have to know is why you’re in the relationship.  If its only purpose is preserving itself, what’s the point?  (“If we’re only scared of losing it/How will it ever last?”)  Then there’s the fact that you may not actually know the person.  Everyone has their secrets, some more than others.  But what if the secret was a big part of the other persons life?  The narrator is hiding what he calls his “darkness” from his lover.  He’s worried that she’ll leave him if she finds out.  He knows that keeping this secret means she doesn’t truly know him, and that he’s actually a stranger to her.   Once she realizes he isn’t what she had thought, it’s going to be difficult for her to ever feel like she really knows him.  (“If I am a stranger now to you/I will always be”)

While I love the song, I don’t think it fits well on the album.  Most of Cold Roses has a very 1960s San Francisco-rock tone, with elements of folk and classic rock.  “If I Am A Stranger” would have fit on another Ryan Adams album much better.

Follow The Lights December 24, 2008

The Follow The Lights EP came out shortly after Easy Tiger and was nice to hold fans over during the tour.  There were two new songs, one recording of a song Ryan wrote for Willie Nelson (sung by Ryan), a cover of Alice in Chains’ “Down In A Hole” and re-recorded versions of “This Is It”, “Dear John” and “If I Am A Stranger.”  These songs were Cardinalized and recorded live in the studio. 

A music video was shot for the title track on some ABC show (Wikipedia doesn’t list it, the music videos on YouTube don’t list it, and Jon Graboff doesn’t remember which one it was, so it isn’t important), but that didn’t do much for promoting the single.  But chart success doesn’t make a song good or bad, I feel like that all lies in the lyrics.  This song happens to be really sweet.  It’s like little bouts of innocence in a person who thought it was lost.  It’s a reflection on life: “These days, they go so fast/These days of ours.” 

The chorus is a simple, child-like instruction how to get home by following the lights on the streetlamps.  The final line of the chorus kills me every time: “They will lead you home/There was never anywhere to go/There was never anywhere to go/But home.” 

The second and third verses are further reflections on the importance of love in our lives.  This is what the whole song is: a nice long look at what love has done and can do for us.