Not that I have made any great forays into the research, but I am assuming a fair number of us grew up with a pet bird in the house. Some friends had a parrot, others a cockatiel, maybe something else we never knew what to call. In my house we had several parakeets at different times throughout my childhood. They were messy and high maintenance, often shrill and relegated to a corner of the house so their sounds were made a background noise to our lives. When we needed a chipper spirit middling in our half-present surroundings, they were there to provide some positive affirmation. You could say sometimes they were there to add a dash of color to the atmosphere. Some may stray darker and say a pet bird serves as a forced reassurance; a chipper salve to cut the silence and poor thoughts of the day.
Whatever the reason, the reality is we caged birds and treated this with an amused detachment. In order to quiet them we would drape a blanket or customized cover over their cages as if the bird was a machine that could be controlled by dialing up and down.
The life of a musical artist is something we often treat with brutal detachment. We choose to keep by the wayside the acknowledgement it’s usually the most sensitive and tormented who make the most beautiful music. Music is the outlet, or more delicately, the form of expression the artist feels can be crafted to hold the clearest reflection of themselves. We rarely suss out the darkness and negativity that runs an undercurrent in the most beautiful or haunting songs. Yet the brilliance of an artist is to create an expression that resonates so fundamentally with us, but is an artifact all the same. We certainly cherish artifacts and embrace them, ascribe them value or extract from them selfishly. It would seem our most preciously held songs are from the songwriters that either carry their demons proud on their shoulders or do hardly well to obscure an inner one.
The posit is no matter the character (or perceived lack thereof) of the artist, we’ve come to know some of our most accomplished artists for the radiant flaws and scarred personalities that make their music all the more potent. The angels of the music world have their place and often hold great esteem as musical groups or individuals, but it’s the demons that truly create the strongest connections with their audience.
Take the most successful comedians – the ones that influence future generations within the craft or strike deeply entrenched connections with their audience. These comedians are typically your most damaged and tormented individuals. They reach into that vast and bitter reservoir inside themselves to express a dark truth of humanity that most of us are not capable of expressing in the same way. For them this is their form of survival. Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, John Belushi, and Greg Giraldo are just a few names to list from a greater collective that lived on the bleeding edge of life, often dangling over the side of villainy or vice. Some died too young or naturally ended up in trouble due to their own scarred and un-healing inner selves.
The same relationship is developed between the musician and the listener, and I’m willing to go on a limb and say we can often ignore the cruel ironies of this relationship much like the beauty we cage – knowing the nature of this prisoner is most accurately the opposite of the way we like to perceive them.
Exhibit A is singer-songwriter Ryan Adams; a polarizing character on the music scene who is disliked by many and ridiculed by a good cadre of musicians moving in his sphere. I’ve read stories of the way he abused relationships with other artists while simultaneously abusing substances. He’s had spats with Julian Casablancas and Albert Hammond Jr. of The Strokes (well chronicled in the book Meet Me in The Bathroom by music journalist Lizzie Goodman, see this From the Blinds post which discusses this revealing book) when Ryan Adams use to run in their circle. He’s been accused of being a bad influence and drug peddler to many artists, but especially Albert Hammond Jr.. For a band like The Strokes, not shy to the world of drugs, sex, and Rock and Roll, to consider Ryan Adams a dark influence is saying something for sure. And its a small wonder that a drug-addled man like Ryan Adams, who would stay up all night partying and drinking, would come into his own in these formative years and birth great albums like Gold (2001) and Demolition (2002).
Another amusing article about the many enemies and critics Ryan Adams has amassed over the years can be found at this site. It’s not surprising to discover Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and Liam Gallagher of Oasis trading barbs about Adams. Tweedy in particular comes out strong with the quote: “I’m happy to let other people make that kind of Wilco record now, and there’s plenty of them doing it, like Ryan Adams.” His brand of referential Americana and Folk-Rock has been the easy victim of many artists’ ridicule. Even the cloying determination of a song like “New York, New York” to become an Americana anthem garners an eye roll from me from time to time. However, its not so easy to throw away the impact he has had on the young Millennials and Generation Yers who were baptized in the fires of Ryan Adams’ forlorn and pleading songwriting style, which is certainly different than Wilco or Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan, albeit far more on the nose but effectual nonetheless.
The truth is he may often write songs like he’s stuck in a deep drug-fueled hole of self-harm (as well as toxic infliction on others), yet it led to some incredibly creative albums and potent songwriting.
His debut album, Heartbreaker (2000), holds a special place for me firstly for the odd contradiction between mature, restrained pacing of the album (reinforced by equally restrained and beautiful ballads like “My Winding Wheel”, and “Damn Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains)”), while vying with darker undertones of the lyrical content. The second reason has to be because of its undeniably heady and unique opening banter on “Argument with David Rawlings Concerning Morrissey” (a 37 second gem of an exchange) that propels straight into one of the greatest Folk-Rock songs ever:
Burgeoning with so much unbridled energy, and with a winsome hint of nostalgia and melancholy, the song sets off the album tremendously and announces itself as a staple of the Folk-Rock genre. Its remarkable to think Heartbreaker was the product of the dissolution of his first band Whiskeytown as well as the torment of a fresh break-up with his music publisher.
Manipulation and exploitation are trademarks of the life story of Ryan Adams. Its also an effortless pursuit to find out he is a domineering conversationalist, self-absorbed, egotistical, and an endless loudmouth (reminds me of similar descriptors for another popular and polarizing Folk singer-songwriter J. Tillman, aka Father John Misty). For brevity’s sake, we can just say he can be an absolute self-righteous prick.
Much of this bad behavior came to the fore in 2019 when abuse and Ryan Adams became a synonymous headline. A flurry of articles were released in 2019 cataloguing his abuse of the women of his life, especially one’s he was in intimate and/or emotional relationships with. The Rolling Stone article from 2019 jumped out to me as the most incisive of the writings discussing the allegations of abuse from the women in Adams’ life. In the article by Jonathan Bernstein titled “Ryan Adams’ Behavior Was Hiding in Plain Sight in His Songs”, Bernstein editorializes many times and stumbles upon some very honest confessions of why he, like many of us, are at once drawn to Adams’ songwriting style and also left aghast by it.
“I was always most drawn to those songs that clearly expressed such utter dejection — “Dear Chicago,” “Hard Way to Fall,” “Come Pick Me Up” — songs that dressed themselves in a type of abject self-pity so absolute that they could feel like balms, a way to validate any traces of those feelings I may have had myself….Adams’ music rarely lent itself toward casual fandom: “I’ve really used a lot of his music to shape my understanding of love and heartbreak,” a friend told me recently. “It’s so scary to realize now that the motivation behind so many of the songs, or at least the understanding of emotional responsibility that led to those songs, is so horrible.”
These songs are balms, and I do agree they are polarizing songs not intended for casual listening. I also have to reluctantly ascribe a lot of my understanding of heartbreak and feelings of inadequacy with the songs of Ryan Adams. He hasn’t taught me much above love, but he has taught me a great deal about how my insecurities could manifest in the worst ways possible, and how my greatest fears in loves could become demons I eradicate (or fail to eradicate) outwardly. The bottom line is the darkness behind his songs has been a salve for me, and resonates with me deeply no matter the way it has manifested for the songwriter himself.
Where I disagree is in the use of the phrase “dressed themselves” to describe the emotional context of Adams’ songwriting. It’s been made obvious by his behavior, no matter how abhorrent, that his dark feelings of dejection, abandonment, and deficiency are genuine by the way he lashed out at the women he perceived as slighting him. Phoebe Bridgers (a stunning songwriter in her own right), Mandy Moore (the actor), and ex-fiancée Megan Butterworth were threatened with his suicide most likely when he sensed a rejection, expulsion, and jilting on the horizon. I’m pretty convinced the man has borderline-personality disorder or something along those lines, yet we must understand that his songs are his survival, or possibly a cry for help, that we must respect for being terribly real feelings. Even if the way he handled the emotional torment was through male rage, anger and lashing-out, its still vulnerability and sincerity. It’s also emotional intensity in the poorest form, as well as a completely undiluted form.
He is a controlling and hedonistic artist, but what we should not neglect is the origin of that behavior. It’s an expression of a pain and fundamental feeling many people, especially young men, are left to contemplate in their hands, and then fashion and mold either as a positive or negative creation. The man behind the music isn’t handling his raw flaws well, yet the vulnerabilities are in the songs, and whether or not you consider them hiding or masquerading in plain sight, they are there to be felt by the listener and then absorbed and deeply cherished for the artifact of the feeling that it is.
In “Dear Chicago”, inauspiciously nicknamed “The Suicide Handbook”, Ryan Adams comes right out and discusses the suicide he has often batted around and used as a perceived weapon against the women he desperately wants to control and make fall in love with him forever. We can ignore the twangy charm of the Folk-Rock music underpinning the song, and take the lyrics both as a comfort to the gravest thoughts many a man has had, while also being a darker exploit of Adams’ most fraught and glaringly self-pitying conceits.
The music of Ryan Adams has often been lambasted for being a poor derivation of many other more authentic or impressive singer-songwriters. I agree, the Folk-Rock and Folk-songwriter origins of his music sonically, aren’t the most impressive aspects of his musical creations. Yet, it does serve as an oft reliable backbone for what I still posit is his greatest skill, which is moving so effortlessly between cloak and dagger dark vulnerability to front and center emotional damage and deep-seated romantic pleading. What I’ve always respected of a lyricist or songwriter, much like the greatest comedians, is the ability to speak something simple and plainly in a way most of us realize so obviously yet haven’t been able to accomplish. At the same time, there is power in the succinctness, and Ryan Adams has always been able to do this.
The video of him from the Easy Tiger (2007) sessions above is unabashedly revealing of his self-deprecating, often maudlin treatment of himself as a hurt, near the edge of utter collapse, emotional performer. However, what is also seen here is a gifted songwriter both harnessing and letting off the rails a bit of toxic magic. Easy Tiger can be faulted for having a strange cohesion and off-kilter pacing between songs. It did however, come to a new generation of young people in America at a time when a manic lovelust and emotionally vulnerable songwriter was truly needed to capture a new era of social isolation and romantic misunderstanding, which was boiling over the gateway and onto the tracks of the teenage psyche. “Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.” is quintessential Ryan Adams folk songwriting complemented with his penchant twangy strumming. Equally as strong are tracks like “Everybody Knows” and “Two Hearts”.
To rank Ryan Adams’ discography is difficult, but for me the three standouts have always been Easy Tiger at 3, Heartbreaker at 2, and Love is Hell (2004) at 1. Love is Hell may come as a surprise, however, for me its his most emotionally resonant, cohesive, and well-formulated release. It also showcases his ability to be a popular songwriter whilst satisfying his more serious audience. He engages his listeners not only in the seductive melancholy of his songwriting style, but the music also seems well-suited for the sentiments. The emotional vulnerability and love-scarred terrain of his mind is wrought a singular vision within a unique production. To put plainly, the instrumentation is better than many of his other albums, and seems to add another dimension to the music.
This album has been the accompaniment to many of my brooding nights. A balm, a salve, whatever you want to call it…it is an undeniable artifact of how love is painful, and can torment us in the most epic, enduring, and gripping of ways. “Love is Hell”, when Ryan Adams begins to wail and scream, is quintessential performing without pretense or affectation. The strange aspect of Love is Hell is its often over-the-top, yet never feels insincere. Its music made more for the listener more than his own untempered ego. And it has an aesthetic that transcends the lyrics to be a greater Rock album of dire importance to the struggling heart.
“Anybody Wanna Take Me Home” and “Love is Hell” are two rightfully anthemic songs, back to back on the album, for the wayward heart. They aren’t so much uplifting as they are battle-bruised and epic chants against the exploits of love and the epic pain that may accompany. This is when Ryan Adams is at his best, when he is writing simply and straightforward in the ways most wish they could. It takes a skilled songwriter to make it seem that easy and equally powerful and resonant. The darkness hovers all around the album Love is Hell, and for me the two best songs are the great distillation of authentic vulnerability – see below for the two picks.
There is also a delicateness in the songs “World War 24” and “Afraid Not Scared” that are sensitive and haunting without having the fraught and inherent ugliness of the artist behind the song so menacingly evident. In addition, an interesting mix of influences, from Radiohead’s Kid A (2000) to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska (1982), seem to emerge in this album. This helps to amplify the production value and cohesive style of the album. Needless to say the depth of Ryan Adams’ torment and personal darkness are laid bare within this style of music on Love is Hell, and it’s something that always leaves me both troubled and sated in the most novel of ways.
Ryan Adams is indeed a polarizing figure. Some would say an outright asshole and tyrant waging mental warfare on all those that may do him harm. An even darker cloud hovers above him recently with the allegations of abuse from seven different women. The darkness and troubled nature of a man like Ryan Adams isn’t something to put on a pedestal or to celebrate. However, we should always endeavor to try and acknowledge the darkness cast over the artist without giving it validity. We can acknowledge while condemning, understand and empathize even if we disagree with the behavior overshadowing brilliance. Some will be able to come to terms with the dilemma between embracing an artist’s craft while avoiding the artist as a person. There are lessons to learn when the troubled nature of our most cherished artists, those that have had a great impact on our own emotional lives, is revealed and we must censure the individual as a member of society. The root cause of the behavior is a pain or a flaw in character to be understood, and lessons extracted from. We have to encounter this more and more in a world with Woody Allen and Bill Cosby and other terrible abusers. Perhaps the worst thing that can be done is to drape the blanket over the bird cage and pretend there is nothing underneath. There is a raw, living and breathing thing behind all of our cherished artifacts and no matter the beauty and inspiration behind the sound, there is an ill conceit delivered with every shroud that is cast.
