Saddling up with Ryan Adams
I finally got a chance to listen to the Jacksonville City Nights MP3s this morning. I know they're only half the album, but overall I'm not thrilled. There's no Jacksonville Skyline here.
Please don't confuse my take for nothing-great-after-Heartbreaker view. The spring's Cold Roses remains in heavy rotation on my playlists, and I think a one-disc mix would have been up there with any release he's done. Jacksonville is a different project, aiming much more country and western, and Adams deserves his usual credit for stretching horizons. But after just listening to half, I think he also deserves his usual criticism: Where's the editor? Where's the self-editing? He's got a mess again here, and it's not even as complicated as it usually is.
Dear John (lyrics) has Norah Jones and Adams loping over each other to frustrating effect, and I can't buy Jones whispering, "Ten years passed / And I ended up with a house full of cats." Adams writes so well about missing people, but he's yet to write about death in any convincing fashion.
Work neither. That's The Hardest Part's problem. The tune is pretty downplayed, so we've gotta focus on the words. The company store? The company boys? Sure, the song quickly gets into the work of love, but — employment, love or music — Adams doesn't have enough credibility in any type of work to claim "the hardest part is working and I've worked enough."
And let's throw God in there while we're at it. Peaceful Valley (lyrics) could easily be When Ryan Adams Talks to God (and Wears a Cowboy Hat). He's got his country yodel in full effect and seems to have some misplaced yearning for CMT rotation. We've got the peaceful valley, "cities of gold," "a gun to my head," and the kicker:
Up there in the clouds
In that glorious kingdom
Tell me there ain't nothing but an easy recline
Can I still smoke my cigarettes and have my coffee
Up there in heaven with a bottle of wine
I would've gone with "easy cheer/bottle of beer" or "life without fear/bottle of bear" or, were I feeling particularly high in the saddle, "field full of steer/bottle of beer." But that's just me. I also would've gone with listening instead to Elvis' Peace in the Valley.
My Heart Is Broken thankfully breaks the losing streak. It's a good one. It's also a Whiskeytown song, AnsweringBell explains. Finding out this link, the first thing that comes to mind is how Amanda's husband Charlie files his Adams albums under "W" for Whiskeytown "because it was a better band." This song is a better song. It's short. It's sad. It makes you want to mosey and sing along.
Things revert to the work problem with Trains. "I've been working hard ever since I was a kid" is the line. Musically, the MP3 poster/blogger is right, the guitars here are more interesting than elsewhere, but when you stack them against the pantheon of locomotive-like chugging songs, they tumble way down the list. Trains expect better art.
Withering Heights (lyrics) attempts nothing in death, work or God's direction, and it's my favorite song of the bunch. I'm still getting past some Bronte issues, but I'm confident of success. There's a delicacy here that makes legitimate even "the moon shines on the boulevard baby let's ride." No matter how many times the words have been said or the sentinments have been expressed, they can always mean something if you want them to, and Adams sounds like he means them here. With the guitar and piano in place as well, picking and plinking, he pulls off the balancing act.
The closing Don't Fail Me Now (lyrics) has moments of that level of clarity — the opening piano and strings, the swinging door enunciation of "your darkened eyes." But the missteps quickly outpace them. There's gratuitous use of "gal," overreliance on "Just don't fail me now / You don't do me right," some annoyingly quiet whispers of Hollywood-style Western lines, and a melodramatic musical climax. If those troubles aren't enough, the song is formerly known to Adams' fans as When The Rope Gets Tight. So when you take a few minutes and listen for yourself to all these songs, be mindful. There's gonna be a hangin'.
