La Cienega Just Smiled March 6, 2009

One thing I’ve always really appreciated about “La Cienega Just Smiled” is how casual the imagery is.  It all starts with the one of the first lines: “It’s on with the jeans, a jacket, and a shirt.”  You also get the impression that this relationship isn’t necessarily as serious as the one found in some other songs.  There’s still a level of uncertainty that comes with a young relationship, and when he sings “I’m too scared to know how I feel about you now”, it’s all painfully obvious.  This whole song is about not being able to understand someone.  He’s going through all of this trouble to figure her out, and she acts like it’s all no big deal.  She just smiles and waves goodbye…

This is one I think most listeners can relate to pretty easily.  At one point or another, we’ve all been attracted to a person who sometimes seems like they’re more work than they’re worth.  I think it’s really great that the song doesn’t provide any closure as to how he ends up feeling about her.  She just says she’ll see him around. (Whatever that means…)

To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High) March 5, 2009

I know it’s technically a different track, but I get a real kick out of the way Heartbreaker starts.  As a Morrissey fan, to hear one of your favorite artists debating whether or not you can find “Suedehead” on certain albums is a real treat.  For the record, “Suedehead” is on Viva Hate and Bona Drag.  Ryan was totally right, Bona Drag is a collection of the singles from the first album (and some non-album releases).  Anyway, enough about Morrissey, onto the topic of this whole blog.

This song has been dismissed by quite a few people as a Bob Dylan knockoff.  I can hear their argument to a certain extent, but I think it was just very heavily influenced by Dylan.  Really, it’s always reminded me of classic country music, back when it was OK for artists to be a little rough around the edges.  The quack of the guitars resembles the old Bakersfield sound, which is something that has been missing from country for a long time.  There are the wild “AW MAN!!!”-s that tend to find their way out right after the choruses, and it all makes for a gritty, groovy good time. 

My only gripe about this one is that, after seeing Ryan Adams four times, I still haven’t heard it live!

Afraid Not Scared March 4, 2009

This song is one of my favorites to hear live, and I swear that’s not just because it’s off of my favorite album.  There’s an intensity that you can really feel in the room during this one.  It doesn’t have the same effect on the rest of the fans in the room, since some of them came to hear more Heartbreaker and Gold songs than from the rest of the catalog.  But while they’re itching for him to bust out the harmonica, there are those of us who are more than happy to hear this one.  It’s a very different energy than what you get out of a song like “Magick” or “Peaceful Valley”, and it’s something I really appreciate. 

There are some lines in this song that are, to put it simply, terrifying.  The best/worst is “I’m getting really cold and I’m looking at you/And you’re not moving.”  No offense to a certain song off of Cardinology, but this is my favorite Ryan Adams song that features an aquatic disaster.  I’ve always felt that the song deserved a bigger, more powerful ending than it got.  It just fades out, while I’d like to hear it get the same treatment as “Political Scientist.”

Somehow, Someday March 3, 2009

Telling someone how you feel about them can be way harder than it should.  This song features a narrator who obviously has some pretty serious feelings (and romantic interest) towards someone he has known for quite a while now, and he’s trying to figure out how he’s going to let her know that he wants his relationship with her to move from friendship to something heavier.  It looks like telling her is his only option, too.  He openly admits “There ain’t no way I’ll ever stop from loving now.”  This doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s going to be telling her soon, though.  When he says “I’m gonna try and show you somehow/Somehow…/Someday…” 

Who knows when “someday” will come?  To be honest, there’s a really good chance that it never comes… 

I’ve always really enjoyed this song, and I feel like it would have been a great choice for a single.  As an R.E.M. fan, I find the guitars pretty much irresistable, and I imagine Peter Buck would definitely be proud.  This song just has such a big chorus, it’s a shame that it wasn’t sent out to promote Gold.

Tomorrow March 2, 2009

On the surface, “Tomorrow” sounds just like any old country song.  It mentions trains, missing your baby, and Waylon Jennings, for god’s sake…  But when you find out a little more about the situation, the song is a lot heavier.  I never really looked into it, but found out just this evening that the song was co-written by Carrie Hamilton, who passed away during the making of Demolition.  While you could look at the song literally and see it revolving around a man and woman who are physically and geographically seperated, it’s hard to not think about two people being seperated by death. 

When you think about introducing death into the lyrics, the first lines of the second verse really mean something more than they do at face.  “A million miles of nothing/Yeah, you’re driving all alone” represents that journey she’s making by herself into whatever comes after life.

Tears of Gold March 1, 2009

A while back, I posted about how I had never been crazy about “Two Hearts.”  I wasn’t surprised that other people had similar feelings towards the song, but the attitudes towards “Tears of Gold” definitely came as a shock.  I have a friend who is a Ryan Adams fan, but he also says he feels like this song is one of his weakest.  But, in the song’s defense, my friend isn’t really into the country stuff.  Personally, I’ve always felt like this is a song that’s truly by The Cardinals.  There are the great harmonies throughout the song (especially in the “Bring the band around…” part), and a great performance by Jon Graboff. 

I just can’t really see what people could dislike about the song.  I understand that it doesn’t fit that well with the rest of the songs on Easy Tiger, but it’s not like the rest of the album has a consistent sound or anything…

Sweet Illusions February 28, 2009

This was a song that I really liked on my first listen because of the guitar intro.  It reminded me of those old Glen Campbell songs that had the solos with the tremolo effect.  While the “Wichita Lineman”/”Galveston” vibe may not have exactly been the intended sound Ryan and the Cards were going for on this song, it’s just a little something I always got out of it.  Luckily, once you get past the intro, there’s a really great song there.  Lyrically, it might be one of the best on Cold Roses (or any of his albums with The Cardinals). 

There are so many lines that just say more than a whole song could (in most cases):

Let me go, I’m only letting you down

I ain’t got nothing but love for you now

You never knew me, but I did my best

These are some incredibly heavy lyrics set to music that is really pleasant and cheerful sounding.  There are really nice jangly guitars and make a nice atmosphere around everything else, and great lines like the ones I just mentioned are icing on the cake.

Boys February 27, 2009

Over my years as a Ryan Adams fan, I’ve heard several different things about this song.  Probably the most popular “rumor” about it is that it’s a response to the Britney Spears song of the same title.  I had read that he felt the lyrics in her song were sexist, and felt like it was unfair.  I was skeptical when I first heard it, because I thought he was above starting a back-and-forth with someone like Britney.  But he went ahead and proved me wrong, because when I did a search online to find out if he had addressed this theory anywhere, I found this in a Rolling Stone interview:

I just recently started writing songs in reaction to other songs. One song I was working on last week was called “Boys,” which is a reaction to “Boys” by Britney Spears. I wanted to write a song in defense of men, because we’re not all players. There are romantics who don’t think about panty lines and don’t talk shit about women. And just because Britney can’t find one doesn’t mean that I’m supposed to be chastised for it. The song doesn’t attack Britney or anything, it attacks this preconceived notion that men cannot be romantic intellectuals.

Ironically enough, the next question they asked him was what music he listens to when making out…

Closer When She Goes February 26, 2009

I’ve always liked listening to this one, and it made perfect sense that it would appear on an EP rather than a regular album due to its length, but it’s just never felt like a real song to me.  It’s just verse-chorus-verse-chorus DONE!  The lyrics are all pretty good, and I feel like they were definitely onto something really cool.  I’m not sure why it was never made into a full-length album track, though.  I always think about that when I hear it, and I’d be lying if I said sometimes it makes me feel just a little bit shortchanged.  The Halloween EP has one pretty good song (“Halloween”), one really great song (“Funeral Marching”) and what sounds like a demo that they threw on for the sake of having three songs. 

A nice listen, but it always leaves me wanting more.  (And not in the good way)

Magnolia Mountain February 25, 2009

I got into Ryan Adams in 2006, and started going after his back catalog like it was nobody’s business.  I was nuts about “Gold” and “Demolition”, found pleasure in listening to “Rock n Roll”, and connected with “Love Is Hell” more than I should have.  When I finally hit “Cold Roses”, I didn’t know what to think.  I could tell by the artwork that this album was just going to be…  you know… different… 

So when I put in that first disc and heard this start up, I really didn’t know what to think.  After the first listen, I could get into “Beautiful Sorta” and a few other obvious ones, but it wasn’t until a few more spins that I realized how great of a song “Magnolia Mountain” is.  What I like about the album is the fact that it’s set in its own little world.  There’s Magnolia Mountain, the Easy Plateau, Cherry Lane, Meadowlake Street…  I’m not sure if all of the geographical titles were intentional or not, but I’m a big fan of them. 

What I really like about this song is the way they manged to really capture the soft/loud dynamics without sounding like Nirvana or something.  Really, this is probably the most live-sounding recording the band has.  Sure, they tried to achieve it on Cardinology, but there’s a certain freedom I hear on “Magnolia Mountain” that hasn’t been matched by any other studio recording I’ve ever heard.