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Mr. Adams…..

Admittedly, this blog is becoming a Ryan Adams fan page with the occasional sidetrack – but with good reason:
The guy’s got enough material to warrant it. i have just short of 600 tracks from Ryan, some of which, i have heard maybe once.

If any other band/artist considered a This Mornin’…. favorite were to supply me with comparable aural goodness, they may see equal attention – but none do.

With the quantity of tunes this guy spits out, some are sure to be completely scrapped soon after their birth – if they’re lucky, they’ll get played live once or twice.
But some of Ryan’s songs are so good, they simply won’t go away. My Heart is Broken was penned at the advice of Caitlin Cary (who wanted Ryan to write the saddest fuckin’ song he could think of – mission accomplished) back in the Whiskeytown days. It showed up on a 7” vinyl along with Theme for a Trucker, Houses on the Hill, and The Strip (Dancing With the Women at the Bar) – which i have. That bare, somber version of the tune lay dormant for 6 years until Ryan and The Cardinals resurrected it for JCN – giving it the full-on steel-guitar, string-section, honky-tonk work up.

Another Adams tune that saw an even longer shelving before getting a complete overhaul is what this particular post is all about.

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Hey There, Mrs. Lovely/These Girls

1999: Hey There, Mrs. Lovely
Live at the Exit/In – Nashville, TN – 10/28/1999
“This is a new song that I wrote that I absolutely fucking hate.”
He mustn’t have hated it too much, because the song got quite a bit of live play from ’99-’00 and was included in The Destroyer Sessions.

2000: Hey There, Mrs. Lovely
Live at Stubb’s – Austin, TX – 3/16/2000 – Kim Richey on harmony vocals.

2000: Hey There, Mrs. Lovely
The Destroyer Sessions – Fall 2000

“Well girl sometimes I feel just like a boy
Put here on this earth for you to toy around with
I’m the plastic three inch armies you destroyed
I’m the monster underneath your bed
You ain’t afraid of yet

And pears
And pills
And pills”

Hey There, Mrs. Lovely could possibly have fit somewhere on Heartbreaker, but had no place on any of Ryan’s next 3 albums. Although it is a song of love-lost, it’s not quite sad-bastard enough to have been included on Love Is Hell. Ryan’s next 3 album batch in 2005 didn’t have a spot for the song either.

2006 saw Ryan doing some solo touring once again, possibly to prepare material for Easy Tiger. At a couple shows in the UK, he pulls out the old number:

But somewhere before the recording of Easy Tiger took place, Ryan gave the song a new spin.

The extra 7 years the song had to marinate changed Ryan’s perspective. A song about one girl in particular morphed into a tune about every girl and every failed relationship Ryan had been through. The new (pluralized) chorus:

The 2nd verse turned to a deeply introspective stanza. Where he originally laid the blame on the two of them, Ryan now admits his own faults (and drops a bombshell of a line):
“I used to pickup shells cast off the reef
One Christmas I got a funeral and they handed me the receipt
How many lies I’d tell without my tongue
Get twisted into memories till I believe ‘em some”

He cleverly keeps key words like Christmas and twisted in the mix as an homage to the original lyrics…

Just to keep things interesting, Ryan and gang recorded all of Easy Tiger in alternate versions live-in-studio style. You can find them floating around somewhere, and i will post the whole set when i get caught up to the present in my Ryan Adams Spotlight.

These Girls receives the most outlandish alternate style in the set. It’s turned into a grungy, scream-o style rocker. The lyrics are a mash-up of both versions mentioned above.

2007: These Girls
The Alternate Easy Tiger

alternate’d out…

In December of 2000 – just a couple months after the release of Heartbreaker and a couple weeks before the session known as The Suicide Handbook (stay tuned…) – Ryan Adams and some friends stopped in at Woodland Studios in Nashville to record some songs.

Another studio session intended to be part of a 4-disc Demolition series, The Pinkheart Sessions finds Ryan in his most punk-rock state so far in his solo career. Backed by Billy Mercer, John Paul Keith, Brad Pemberton, and Bucky Baxter – also know as The Pinkhearts – this session produced two songs that would later make it on the only disc to be officially released in the Demolition project. The cuts here of Starting To Hurt and Gimme A Sign are the actual takes that made it on Demolition (2002). Most of the remainder of Demolition came from the second Pinkheart Sessions recorded in the summer of 2001 (again, stay tuned).

Other notable songs from this collection are Mega-Superior Gold and Candy Doll, both of which received considerable live play when Ryan toured some as Ryan Adams & The Pinkhearts. Aside from a couple brilliant songs, this session is a mix of over-powered rock, juvenile satire, and even a couple of instrumental takes. But if you take it for what it actually was – limited studio time booked with the intention to try some things that may make an album one day – it served it’s purpose. The standout track from the first Pinkheart Session is Young Winds. Ryan managed to calm his overactive limbs, sit at the piano, and pour out another soulful serenade.

Some tracks are not included for obvious reasons.

1. Starting To Hurt (Demolition)
2. Mega-Superior Gold
3. Gimme A Sign (Demolition)
4. Win
5. Red Red Red Red Wine
6. Candy Doll
7. I Don’t Wanna Work
8. Charmed
9. Enemy Fire (instrumental)
10. Testy, Testy (instrumental)
11. Around The World/Under The Bridge (RHCP parody)
12. Young Winds

Check out the rest of my Ryan Adams Spotlight:
1. Took Me Long Enough: Whiskeytown
2. Heartbreaker
3. Gold
4. Exile on Franklin Street
5. The Destroyer Sessions
6. Whiskeytown: The Missing Bridge
show all

i know it’s been a while between installments of my Ryan Adams Artist Spotlight, but i’ve been doing things like graduating, moving, vacationing, and starting a new job. But now that i’m sorta in one place for a while, i can attempt to get back to my regular schedule – weekly New Digs, weekly Playlist Pulse, and the occasional RA post.

We left off on a review of the first of many of Ryan’s ‘unreleased’ albums – Exile on Franklin Street. The idea of this extended Artist Spotlight was to chronologically review RA’s oeuvre for the sake of:
1. exposing some new people to Ryan Adams
2. supplying my readers with hard-to-find Ryan Adams tracks
3. further instilling my admiration of his music through an in-depth back review

But…….. i got a little out of order by posting my Gold review directly after Heartbreaker. The simple fact is…. shortly before Heatbreaker and up to the recording of Gold, Ryan recorded 5 or 6 ’studio sessions’ that never made official releases. A lot of the songs on these sessions were re-cut and appeared later on his first 4 solo albums.

To be completely honest, the only reason i stumbled across the world of Music Blogs was because i was trolling around for b-sides/ unreleased songs from Ryan, and (judging from the majority of my referrals on SiteMeter) that’s also how many people find This Mornin’……

Ok, now i’m just rambling……..
i’ve said before that i don’t consider myself the most eloquent person, nor am i an expert music review-er – so maybe that’s why i stall when it comes to things like this. But i like to think i have great taste in music and simply want to expose a few people to the stuff that keeps me going throughout the day………

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Unlike Exile on Franklin Street, The Destroyer Sessions are composed of real songs – no crazy guitar-wailing or screamo stuff – these are well-written, well-composed tunes that range from the omnipotent plaintive RA ballad to groovy, driving acoustic numbers.

This session was recorded just a few days before Heartbreaker at Pilot Studios in NYC. Gillian and Dave helped with the recording and their influence (and input) are present on a lot of the tracks. This was early enough in Ryan’s carrer that his strong roots/folk style is still very noticeable – in fact, aside from Whiskeytown’s stuff, this collection is his folkiest, which is probably why it continues to be some of my favorite material in his catalog.

By far my favorite unreleased Ryan Adams track, Poison & The Pain, shows up here. An echoey, backwoods tune, the song contains some well-placed harmonies and hand-claps that add a ghostly effect. How this one hasn’t seen the glory of an official release is beyond me, but then, i’ve never claimed to understand many of Ryan’s musical choices.

Only two songs from Destroyer reached an album: the masterpiece, In My Time of Need, and Bartering Lines - both mentioned here. The collection also includes a couple songs that received a lot of live play during Ryan’s extensive solo-touring around Heartbreaker: Born Yesterday, Statuettes With Wounds, and Hey There, Mrs. Lovely – that eventually morphed into These Girls and appeared on Easy Tiger. He caps off the session with a rare cover song – a dizzying, electrified version of Gillian Welch’s venerable Time (The Revelator).

The Destroyer Sessions
Fall 2000

mp3: Dreaming’s Free
mp3: Poison & The Pain
mp3: Time (The Revelator)

all zipped up…..

Be sure to check out the rest of my Ryan Adams Spotlight:
1. Whiskeytown
2. Heartbreaker
3. Gold
4. Exile on Franklin Street – or, just click here
for all of them on one page.

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“Had myself a lover who was finer than GOLD,

but I’ve broken up and busted up since.”

If you’re new here, be sure to check out
volumes 1 and 2 of my extra-large Ryan Adams Spotlight.

1. Whiskeytown
2. Heartbreaker

or, just click here for all of them on one page.

With Heartbreaker blowing the door open – critically, not commercially – for Ryan’s solo career, he was able to step out of the Alt-country world he had been living in since Whiskeytown and make the rockin’ blues record he had been wanting to.

In 2001, emerging record label, Lost Highway, picked up on the genius that was Heartbreaker, and signed Ryan. Their first order of business was to pluck Whiskeytown’s Pneumonia off the shelf it had been collecting dust on due to legal troubles with other labels. They released it in March of ‘01.

So, Ryan put together 16 stellar tracks that literally span from coast to coast. Gold begins with New York, New York, and song that, in the wake of 9/11, became Ryan’s biggest hit to date. The video received considerable airplay on MTV in the weeks following the disaster. Other obvious standouts include Answering Bell (with vocal help from Adam Duritz of Counting Crows), The Rescue Blues, Touch Feel & Lose, and When The Stars Go Blue. To the surprise of many, Tim McGraw covered Stars Go Blue recently (i don’t feel the need to look up anything on McGraw). At a live show, after playing the song, Ryan said “that’s right, i wrote that song. i got a pool made out of unicorn bones because of that fucking song.” My favorite obscure track off the album is Gonna Make You Love Me More - one of many that evoke The Stones – check it out. Like every other Ryan Adams album (with the exception of Rock N Roll) the disc closes with his signature melancholy piano ballad. Goodnight Hollywood Blvd brings an amazing record full circle – geographically and stylistically.

Gold brought Ryan into the Rock/Pop spotlight (that he soon after shot out and hid from) with 2 Grammy Nominations: Best Rock Album and Best Male Rock Vocal for New York, New York.

Notable Liner Note Shout Outs:
Elton John – you sweet sweet man
Mexico for being Mexico
OASIS!!!
Mike Fuckin Daly
Rhett Miller and the 97’s
Keith Richards
Converse and cowboy boots
the Harlem Globetrotters
Anne Frank
MEG WHITE – for saving Rock ‘n’ Roll
Alanis Morrisette (4 times)
and Winona Ryder….. damn girl

But the fun doesn’t stop there, folks. As usual, Ryan rounded up a disc of B-sides for Gold. i’ve said before, i don’t want to post any album cuts from Ryan, as i think you should you do yourself a favor and buy them. But for your listening pleasure, here is side D from the album:

1. mp3: Rosalie Come and Go
2. mp3: The Fools We Are As Men
3. mp3: Sweet Black Magic
4. mp3: The Bar Is a Beautiful Place
5. mp3: Cannonball Days

The bonus disc contains a little bit of everything: timeless rockers, contemplative ballads, and even a hint of bluegrass.

In addition to the B-sides, i’ve gotten my hands on a couple tracks that came with the New York, New York single released in November of 2001.

mp3: Mara Lisa
mp3: From You To Me

Buy Gold here (iTunes) or here (Amazon).
Get in on Vinyl here, and get the Bonus Tracks.

—-> Continue on to the next Post….

—-> View the Ryan Adams Spotlight on one page…

So, i’m sittin’ here thinkin’ about who/what to post about next, and i realized that, aside from a couple brief mentions in my ‘best of 2007′ posts and a couple songs here and there, in about 2 months of blogging, i haven’t talked about one of my favorite guys ever….

Ryan Adams

i’m not gonna be timid like a bunch of people are when they talk about Ryan…

He IS the best American songwriter since Bob Dylan. Many other people say that he may be, he will be, or he is close to. Fuck that.
He IS.

i think there are a few conditions – most of which one must meet to be considered a great singer/songwriter: