A letter to Ryan Adams, who announced his retirement on his blog this week

Ryan Adams announced his retirement on his Cardinals blog earlier this week. He's since taken it down, but not before I could write the following letter. It was, however, before I could figure out how to send it to him.

Dear Ryan,

A friend who works for Jambase forwarded me the link to your blog saying that you’d like to retire from music. In it, you spoke of the pressures of being on the road, of health that needed attention, of fans and journalists speculating on your behavior and calling you an asshole for things you said. You spoke of someone you loved that you’ve lost, and of appreciating the day to day things that a life on the road never allowed to appreciate.

I’ve looked at your website exactly one time in my life, to find the set list for the one show of yours I was able to go to, at the Paramount Theater in Seattle in late January 2008. Because of this, I’ve never seen any of your comments you’ve made on your blog, not about your loss, for which I don’t know what you’re referring to, but I’m also very sorry; loss is difficult. I don’t know what you’ve written that’s been taken out of context, and I don’t know why you’re labeled an asshole, although I admit that stories of you freaking out on stage are sometimes kinda funny, and only illustrate the things I love about you, and maybe musicians in general. I mean, if those of us that are fans of musicians are allowing our pain and uncertainties be sublimated into music, it only makes sense that the people that create that sublimation would sometimes act out of pain and uncertainty. They speak to the irrationality that we’re not all that good at expressing.

But back to the one time I went to your website, to find that set list. That concert is still the only concert I’ve been to in my life, by anyone, that started on time. My friends and I arrived at 8:05 p.m. and already found you midway through your first song – which apparently was “Bartering Lines,” although I didn’t see it. We were quickly ushered to our seats as you segued seamlessly into “Peaceful Valley.” I see that you perform “Peaceful Valley” quite often, but I didn’t know how you’d morphed the violins into guitars when performing it live. Nothing had ever sounded like this in all of your songs – with the guitars so expressive, loud, and mournful. Your voice was always plenty expressive in that song’s silent bout of “Trying to find a peaceful song/ to sing when everything goes wrong,” but in harmony with the Cardinals, it was also sweet, soothing, and entirely complementary of the new guitar part. “Peaceful Valley” was already my favorite song on Jacksonville City Nights– a tall order, but more on that later – but this was incredible. Segueing into “Mockingbirdsing,” also, it was a great comfort – you sang “Mockingbirdsing” in your highest register, and the “Don’t give up on love” climax was more sweet and emphatic than usual. In a way, the thought hadn’t occurred to me – not giving up on love. I guess I’m not in love now, I have no relationship to speak of, and when I was in love before, it didn’t really last. It’s nice to know I should hold out for a little bit more.

I’m a big fan of yours, but not enough to follow the blogs, the media interpretation of the blogs (yawn), the every tribulation of rumor that following someone online entails. I haven’t seen you enough (I haven’t seen you twice, for that matter) to say, as one fan did of the show you did, that the version of “Cold Roses” you performed lacked passion. I don’t know how it would be possible to reach that conclusion, but more importantly, what a dumb, snobby thing to say – and what a revocation of the gift that is that song. “Cold Roses” is brilliant, brilliant. What a song, what a guitar part, what a harmony. I don’t think you’re capable of singing it without passion, and I don’t know what that would sound like. I think it’s nuts to imply that any and every appearance of that song everywhere is not a gift to people who love music. I’m thankful for that song, as I am of so many of your great songs, and I will likely put it on in my car when I decide to stop writing this and leave my office to go get lunch.

Let me explain how I became a fan of you, and what your music means to me. I’m not going to say some things that get said that I find untrue – your music did not help me through the darkest parts of my life. I’m not your #1 fan. I haven’t followed every word you’ve written. I don’t even own Demolition.

I was in a coffee shop, sometime in early 2005, when someone played “Let It Ride.” I went home and downloaded it illegally (sorry. But you’ve gotten plenty of my money since then). I couldn’t get enough of it – what a song! It’s still, I think, your most perfect song, full of energy and excitement. When I downloaded it, I couldn’t seem to find a version that started from the beginning, with the full guitar flourish with which it begins. So, I paid to download the song. I loved it so much, I figured there had to be more songs from Cold Roses I would like, so I downloaded “Friends” and “If I Am A Stranger.” I got laid to “Friends” once, and it seemed to put in context to me all the sweetness and warmth of that song. The truth was, though I’d always avoided listening to you (I mean, so many albums, so much effort to get to know them), you could create a brilliant song, you had a gift – a song that, like all great songs, could make concise and clear a simple emotion, and make you return, melodically, to it over and over in your head. Songs that affected your thoughts and ideas and your heart and your mind.

Still, I resisted buying an album. Then, my father saw you on Letterman, which he always watches, playing “Come Pick Me Up.” He told me I’d love the song. I downloaded that one, too. It immediately became one of my most played songs on my iPod. I picked up and moved to Seattle (unrelated to you, sorry), and decided the first album I needed to buy was Cold Roses. Though I didn’t love it immediately, I fell in love with it one song at a time, realizing each one’s perfection. I realized, actually, there wasn’t a bad song on it. Then I bought Rock And Roll after downloading “So Alive.” I realized there actually wasn’t a bad song on there either. Then, by then, to Easy Tiger, which I bought the day it came out. Then to Jacksonville City Nights.

I’d like to send you, someday, the 6 page essay I decided to write on Jacksonville City Nights, which I would actually include in a list of the most influential albums of my life. What a brave, weird, confused, varied, unique record. There is much I want to say about it, except that I identified with its frayed nerves and broken-glass pianos. I wanted to cry at the harmonies in “Dear John.” I’d listen to “Don’t Fail Me Now” when it was cold and feel understood. I’d loved “A Kiss Before I Go” nearly as much as “Let It Ride” and sang like an asshole to the harmonies in “Withering Heights” as loud as I could in my car. And then there was “Peaceful Valley,” the most frayed, and yet the most hopeful of all of the songs on the record – is it a song that seeks death as solace, or is it something that creates what it’s looking for, a peaceful song to sing when everything goes wrong? I didn’t quite feel, as crazy as I felt at the time, that everything had gone wrong for me, but I did feel like the song protected me some, blanketed me from forces driving me on to seek a peaceful valley somewhere.

My dad, who loved you on Letterman, went out and bought 29, an album he didn’t care for, so I stole his copy, and I made him copies of Cold Roses and Jacksonville City Nights, which he loved. Luckily, I loved 29 enough for the both of us. I’ve written extensively about that record too, which I see as a primer on survival. “Most of my friends are married and making them babies. To most of them I’ve already died.” Sometimes I look back on life and I marvel at my ability to stay alive, to look back at my dead dog’s pile of bones and be shocked that they represent the passage of time, that time has passed at all. “Strawberry Wine,” though “imperfect,” I guess, in a way that “Let It Ride” or “A Kiss Before I Go” are not, might be my favorite of all of your songs – I love how your voice trembles in the “Don’t spend too much time on the other side/ let the daylight in” chorus, and I think the line is, in its way, how you’ve survived. I guess I can’t say the imperfections in “Strawberry Wine” are my favorites – because I love “Carolina Rain” so much. And because I love “Voices” so much. And because I think “Elizabeth, You Were Born To Play That Part” was born to play in my car while it’s gray and raining (I live in Seattle, after all, so that’s often).

Since then, I’ve gotten caught up on the pre-Cardinals albums. Let me tell you that I don’t see them on playlists of your shows much (I don’t really know your playlists that well anyway), but “My Winding Wheel” and “The Avalanche” and “Hotel Chelsea Nights” are also songs I feel are perfect, even if they’re more direct than some of your braver works. I think “My Love For You Is Real” is a great song to get high to – you can’t stop smiling at it. I love working out to “The Drug’s Not Working” and to “Shakedown on 9th Street.” The truth is, it’s destiny for me to be a fan of your music, and I don’t much care about the other stuff.

So, I wanted to write you to take objection with your feeling that nothing you did mattered, or any of the “art will set you free” bullshit self-pitying artists can’t seem to take as truth. You are forced to feel how you do about the work that you’ve done, but I don’t have to accept it. Your music has been a part of my life, it has been my friend, it has known more of my thoughts than most people ever will. I’ve defended you against detractors. I’ve said, to many people, that the show at the Paramount in January of 2008 was possibly the best concert of my life. I wrote about “Elizabeth…” in my Great Songs series that I write for, 29 for my blog, and tried to get my essay on Jacksonville published. I hope you take some pride in the work you’ve done, and I hope you matter to yourself, but ultimately it’s irrelevant because your music matters so much to me.

With love and respect,

Ethan Kutinsky
Seattle, WA 98103
ekutinsky@gmail.com
ohsweetnuthin.blogspot.com