fu srsly lol xo, ninja.
rebecca_star and myself are going to see Ryan Adams tonight for the third time ("AGAIN?!" said my mother, "AGAIN?!" said mymateLiz - but how can I possibly explain?). In anticipation I had planned to re-work my shotgun Ryan Adams sampler, but lolz and then some more lolz caused me re-evaluate and push forward with an idea I'd been toying around with for a while:
these girls | or, a few reasons why david ryan adams writes such great songs (most of the time)
» full zip «
» individual mp3 folder «
» tracks 01-12 | tracks 13-23 «
23 tracks | mp3 | 01:18:14 | 101.95mb
ryan adams | hey there mrs. lovely
well, girl sometimes I feel just a boy
put here on the earth for you to toy 'round with
I'm the plastic three-inch armies you destroy
I'm the monster underneath your bed y'ain't afraid of yet."These Girls" which appears on Easy Tiger (2007) is a reworked version of a song called "Hey There Mrs. Lovely," which dates back to 1999.
(I feel that using these tracks to bookend the mix is a stroke of genius.)
whiskeytown | 16 days
got sixteen days
one for every time I've gone away
one for every time I should have stayed
should have wore my wedding ring.Whiskeytown formed in 1994 when Ryan was nineteen or twenty. Caitlin Carey and Ryan were the only two constant members until they disbanded in 1999. Caitlin provided backing vocals, and played the violin and the fiddle. You can check out her solo work at her myspace, or she has a few free downloads in her website's "music" section.
cindy cashdollar | speedin' west
[instrumental]Lap steel guitars, you guys. asdfghjkl; (This is even more awesome because it sounds like it should be Super Mario music!)
Initially, The Cardinals of Ryan Adams & The consisted of Ryan Adams, Brad Pemberton, JP Bowersock, Catherine Popper, and Cindy Cashdollar. The band toured in 2004 and recorded Cold Roses (2005), for which Cindy provided backing vocals, and played the steel guitar and resonator guitar. Cashdollar left in 2005 (not accompanying them on the promotional tour for Cold Roses) and was replaced by Jon Graboff (♥♥♥).
I feel I should mention that Catherine Popper played bass guitar, piano and contributed backing vocals but left the band in 2006, just before I saw Ryan and the gang for the first time.
ryan adams | note to self: don't die
I'm as blue
I'm as blue as the ocean is true, it's just reflections
of the sky
I'm as cold
I'm as cold as the stories you told but never sick
enough to die.I never know what to say about Rock N Roll (2003). I absolutely hated it when I first heard it because it's three hundred different types of ridiculous, from the being funded by Courtney Love (more on that coming up) to the wretched lyrics to Ryan thanking his then-girlfriend, Parker Posey, in the liner notes and naming her as the "Exe'cute'ive Producer," appearing "courtesy of her bad self." Yes, yes he did that. Seriously. She co-wrote the track and uh, sings the nobody baby bit near the end.
It's a trashy-awesome album, and fills me with a sense of fond oh, RYAN-ness. Ooh, and Ryan also wrote a song especially for Posey, entitled "Hey Parker, It's Christmas," the dork. Annnd there's this interesting and adorkable interview here where Parker interviews Ryan about "their" album. RA: Sometimes you're so cute I want to punch myself in the mouth.
edit: Oh Christ. This article (scroll down) informs me that Rock N Roll was written/recorded/released after Ryan and Leona Naess had broken off their engagement, and gives a little bit of lyric analysis to how his album and hers (Leona Naess, 2003) correspond. LOL.
hole | celebrity skin
honeysuckle, she's full of poison
she obliterated everything she kissed
now she's fading
somewhere in Hollywood
I'm glad I came here
with your pound of flesh.Oh, Courtney, Courtney, Courtney. So. Ryan's label refused to fund or messed up the funding or something or other got fucked up for Rock N Roll. Ryan was determined to make this album and somehow in all this it comes to light a few months ago that it was funded by a certain Courtney Love. Or in her words, he stole $858,000 of Frances Bean's trust fund (does that makje youf eel like a big man ? stealing from a suicide? A MARTYRED HERO?) and it took C.Love a while to notice because she has twenty-nine American Express cards.
and when i met Ryan we had a mild little flirtation, why not? but i made the deathly stupid decision to [..] have very safe sex with him ( hes pretty dirty and man ive been around but im the virgin mary comparitevly)
ryan adams | do miss america
hey, come everybody do Miss America
hey, you know when she goes down it's hysterical
so, tell me how you feel without your medicine
hold your head feeling paranoid
running down the street from a mergatroid.HEY YOU KNOW WHEN YOU GO DOWN ITS HYSTERICAL. an excellent lyric wouldnt you think.? still shooting smack? hows that going for you? A+ way to end a diatribe C.Love. A. Plus.
I like to believe this song is actually about Courtney Love, because Ryan is capable of being that big a passive-aggressive dick. And to add insult to injury, ex-Hole bassist and childhood friend of Rufus Wainwright (I feel this is relevant due to the glee it gives me) Melissa Auf Der Maur plays bass on this track and provides backing vocals for other songs on Rock N Roll.
mandy moore | candy
like sugar to my heart
I'm cravin' for you
I'm missin' you like candy
you know who you are
your love's as sweet as candy
I'll be forever yours
love always, Mandy.Did Ryan Adams and Mandy Moore have a thing earlier this year? I fucking hope so. He even posted pictures of both of them in his apartment on his since-deleted Tumblr. ♥ But as New York Magazine points out, "They must have fallen for one another while working closely together on her album Wild Hope last year. Wasn't he still with Jessica Joffe then?"
(Ryan denies all, though.)
ryan adams | banter: ninjas & alanis morrisette (live 04/10/08)
[...] and one of the ninjas is going to be really mild-mannered and write me a really mean card. "dear Ryan, I'm a ninja. why did you blow my cool? consider this card the verbal equivalent of a throwing star. fu srsly lol xo, ninja." anyway this next song, I wrote this song because I wanted to suck face with Alanis Morrisette. it DID NOT WORK.EFF YOU ESS-AR-ESS EL-WHY EL-OH-EL EX OH, NINJA. I FUCKING LOVE THIS CRAZY MAN.
The song the stage banter preceded was "Desire," which is a fuckin' pretty song.
ryan adams w/ alanis morrisette | 1974 (live 02/20/01)
I was born in 1974
on a calm meticulous street
someplace in the sun
oh the air was sweet
and enough lights sprang sparks
through the window of the room
not as raw to a ridiculous tune
slightly out of key in the mother hour
[...]
I was born in 1974
in a breached feet-first way
my twin opened the door
my very first dose of chivalry
I was dawned princess potential potent
with gold star and matching impression
big between two doors
small and loved and proud and unthreatened."Alanis and I wrote a song we're thinking about putting on it, but she's in D.C. kicking ass about this record company thing," he says. "[The song] is called '1974'; it's the year she and I were born. She wrote her verse about her, I wrote my verse about me, then she wrote one about me and I wrote one about her, and then we end it together. I read a [live] review that said it's about a shared birth year and breaking bones. It kind of is actually."
It's possible I may have OD'd the mix with Alanis, but I can't help loving her.
alanis morrisette | my humps
the boys they wanna sex me
they always standing next to me
always dancing next to me
tryin'a feel my hump, hump
lookin' at my lump, lump
you can look but you can't touch it
if you touch it I'ma start some drama
you don't want no drama
no, no drama, no, no, no, no drama.LOLOLOL. HEARTS. HEARTS IN MY EYES. I don't think Ryan and Alanis ever dated, but I do think that they would be ridiculous amounts of fun to spend an evening with. Did you know that he thanks her five separate times in the liner notes for Gold (2001) because he lost a bet? Dorrrrrrks.
Check out Alanis' parody music video for " My Humps"!
winona ryder & angelina jolie | downtown
just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
how can you lose?After moving to New York and going through a traumatic break-up which spawned a great album in 2000 (more on that later), Ryan moved to LA and met Winona Ryder and had a did-he-didn't-he-he-denies-it thing with her and made another album in 2001.
Gold, the album, is very LA influenced, and a bunch of the songs such as "Goodnight Hollywood Blvd," "When The Stars Go Blue," and "Nobody Girl" are speculated to be about Winona.
leona naess ft. ryan adams | leave your boyfriends behind
I've got happy fingers
you've got triggers
keeping an eye on the ghost that we made
one foot out the door and the other on your eyes
hands up, let's toast to us again
'cause we're not ready, we're not even close
we're not like the rest, no, we ain't like most.I'm assuming that Leona Naess and Ryan were together from mid-2002 until they broke their engagement in 2003. I don't know if it's written about her, but she's the girl he snogs in the video for "Answering Bell" (released 2002).
Ryan then left her for Parker Posey ("they" say he was giving her mandolin lessons for her role in A Mighty Wind) and Leona retaliated by selling t-shirts with the slogan "My X Is A Wanker." Though clearly from this bonus track from Leona's 2008 album Thirteens they seem to have reconciled... somewhat. (Plus, they toured with one another sometime in 2006 so.)
beth orton | this one's gonna bruise
do you even know what's going on in a heart anymore?
constellations turned into little polaroids in a cardboard box
[...]
and I wanted so desperately to say
that you could trust me but I was lying anyway
okay, okay, what a thing to lose
left out in the rain, misuse
you'll learn one day won't you?
you'll learn some day won't you?
what you had was good for a while then it changed
got too intense made it strange
and I feel bad for you I feel bad for you
but I don't know why I don't know why
'cos I'm as dead as you.In 2002 Beth Orton released Daybreaker which was where she collaborated (in true alt-country style) with a bunch of musicians and so met Ryan.
"I thought he was an ass when I first met him," Orton admitted. "No offense, but I thought he was a cocky American. But then we got in the studio and he was wonderful. There is a beauty and wiseness expressed in his voice ... I thought he must be about 40. I suppose I was really attracted to that and to the crack of his voice [on his album] ... I'm not saying I heard it with my mind, I heard it with my heart."
Ryan wrote this song, and Beth sang it, and if you read the article she's kinda shifty about it. Did-they-didn't-they?
ryan adams | english girls approximately
tall drink of water, she's a Norfolk waterfall
little daybreaker, she's a shootin' like a cannonball
crazy like a rocket when you're coming through my radio
kept me in your bed till the wintertime turned to fall
fall time coming, and I guess my little bird can sing
come on Elizabeth, a come on a Bethany
come on further, I'm tired and I want to sleep
my little dove do, and I guess she was done with me
said you didn't love me, it was right on time, I was just about to tell you that it'll be alright
said you didn't love me, didn't want a thing, English girls can be so mean.Oh yeah, they totally did. Completely and utterly and undeiably about Beth Orton. From 2004's Love Is Hell.
just three words, my love: you meant everything.
Also on Daybreaker is the song "Concrete Sky" which Ryan and Beth duet on. This section is making me cry already and I haven't even got to the most gut-wrenching part.
ryan adams | jesus (don't touch my baby)
in California
forever summer and hot
into the ocean
you're smiling a lot
on sandy beaches
and the blankets are hot
you're in my arms
and I kiss your heart
Jesus, don't touch my baby
Jesus, don't touch my baby
Jesus, don't touch my baby
she's all that I got.A lot of Ryan's songs, across all his albums, are all about Carrie Hamilton. She and Ryan were together for a short while before she died from lung and brain cancer in January 2002 while he was -I believe- in Australia but which devastated him. Demolition (2003) is dedicated to her, and "Jesus (Don't Touch My Baby)" is the closing track. She's also the woman in the liner pictures for Gold.
My heart hurts so much right now. :(
ryan adams | dear chicago
think about you all the time
it's strange and hard to deal
think about you lying there
and those blankets lie so still
nothing breathes here in the cold
nothing moves or even smiles
I've been thinking some of suicide
but there's bars out here for miles
sorry about the every kiss
every kiss you wasted bad
I think the thing you said was true
I'm going to die alone and sad."Dear Chicago" is also taken from Demolition (2003) but it's about Amy Lombardi (she's a publicist and has been Neko Case's for eight years), the woman he wrote 2000's amazing and gut-wrenching Heartbreaker about. Yeah, the whole freaking album. Anyway, they moved to New York together but she broke up with him shortly after and then he made a fucking brilliant album. Guess where she's originally from. Go on.
I think I've fallen out of love, I think I've fallen out of love with you.
I like how it can be read as a transitioning song between Heartbreaker/Amy and Gold/Winona (with hints of Amy, "Harder Now That It's Over" is based on an event where Ryan literally threw his drink in that guy's face - one of the guys from The New Pornographers who was a client of Amy's. And apparently that's why Neko Case hates him. lolz).
ryan adams | amy
is God playing evil tricks on me?
is God playing evil tricks on me?
oh, I love you Amy
do you still love me?Oh, Ryan. ;_;
rachael yamagata | i want you
you simplified me down to slogans on the wall
I took offense, but you were right about them all
my friends are telling me I shouldn't waste my time
but I can't concentrate until I make you mine
I'm drawing cards and making wishes down by the well
who would've known I'd lose myself in that old hotel.Contributed by playing piano and providing backing vocals on the tracks "Let it Ride", "Cold Roses", and "Friends" from Cold Roses (2006). Interestingly, she was also a co-writer on Mandy Moore's Wild Hope (2007) and toured with her.
[wiki | myspace | website]
ryan adams & the cardinals | sweet illusions
you never knew me but I did my best
I'm just lonely inside I guess
you gave me everything
you really tried, thanks
if we were nothing and we're only the past
well I'm just living in a dream I guess.let me go, I'm only letting you down. Jesus. I think this is Ryan's song to Parker Posey, as they split up just before Cold Roses was released in 2005. It's never been a secret that Ryan's done shitloads of drugs, but I think just before they split up and obviously after was the peak (or one of them) in his drug-taking which eventually ended up in him doing really crazy shit like speedballs. >:|
Then sometime in 2006 he started dating Jessica Joffe who played a big part in him getting sober (Valium therapy and occasionally attending AA meetings), but they split up in early 2008. I don't know much about her other than she's some sort of model/socialite/newspaper columnist? Gawker was hilariously obsessed with their relationship.
ryan adams | two
I got a really good heart
I just can't catch a break
if I could, I'd treat you like you wanted me to I promise.The first single from 2006's Easy Tiger. Sheryl Crowe provides backing vocals on this. Back in 2004, Ryan and Sheryl did duet of " If It Makes You Happy."
It's weird but Ryan's self-pity in this song makes me eyeroll while his hundreds of other songs don't. I think the fact that it's more pop-rock-slick than his previous work adds to it. And it's not a bad thing, it's just... different? (Personally, I read it as a kinda country-style wife-beater apology song.)
[wiki | myspace | website]
alanis morrisette | you oughta know
'cause the love that you gave that we made wasn't able
to make it enough for you to be open wide, no
and every time you speak her name
does she know how you told me you'd hold me
until you died? 'til you died
but you're still alive.I think Alanis would tell Ryan how it is without any bullshit tbh. Plus this is still a badass song. \o/
ryan adams | these girls
and I toy with you
it makes me tired and i wanna go to bed
these are better off in my head
these girls are better off in my head
these girls are better off in my head.In its original incarnation, "Hey There Mrs. Lovely" was rooted in a dying romance with a specific person. Adams sang it in a wounded yelp, mourning a doomed relationship he felt powerless to either save or end. He sang in a key of utter hopelessness. [...] In contrast to the original version's raw emotion, Adams sings "These Girls" in a weary, seen-it-all, just-short-of-lazy croon. While the opening verse seems to be about someone very much like the original song's subject, the chorus mutates "These Girls" into a jaded ode to the sort of groupies a critically acclaimed rock star might encounter.
- Ryan Adams edits himself, The News & Observer
BONUS TRACK
ryan adams | sylvia plath
I wish I had a Sylvia Plath
busted tooth and a smile
and cigarette ashes in her drink
the kind that goes out and then sleeps for a week
the kind that goes out on her own
to give me a reason, for well, I dunno.
GENERAL/OVERLAPPING "ROMANTIC" GIST: Amy Lombardi -> Winona Ryder -> Carrie Hamilton -> Beth Orton -> Leona Naess -> Parker Posey -> Courtney Love -> Jessica Joffe -> Mandy Moore.
OTHER WOMEN OF NOTE:
» Norah Jones, sings on "Dear John" (Jacksonville City Nights, 2005) which is one of my favourite Ryan songs and possibly the only time I have appreciated Ms. Jones [wiki | myspace | website]
» Anna Faris, namedropped in "Look Who Got A Website (Dot Com Motherfucker)" [wiki | imdb | website]
» Emmylou Harris, provides backing vocals on "Oh My Sweet Carolina" (Heartbreaker, 2000) [wiki | myspace | website]
» Gillian Welch, sings on "Sweet Lil Gal" (Heartbreaker, 2000) and co-wrote "Enemy Fire" (Gold, 2001) and is the long term music partner (and was once in a relationship with) David Rawlings who co-wrote "To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)" (HB) and "Touch, Feel, & Lose" (Gold) [wiki | myspace | website]
» Marianne Faithfull provides backing vocals on a few tracks on Love Is Hell pt. 2 (2003)
The information in this mix was compiled to the best of my knowledge... which was garnered from three nights of intensive googling. I'm not saying that everything here is absolutely correct and true because a) the vast majority of these learnings come from THE INTERNET and b) sometimes I don't even think Ryan knows what's going on with his relationships, so how should we? He says one thing in one source and then days, weeks, or months later says something else entirely contradictory (either on purpose or because he's just like that) - and I love him despite it.
This mix is supposed to be extremely lolarious and Ryan-mocking, but also a celebration of some really cool women (yes, I like them all, even Mandy Moore - she's freaking adorable!) so if I've missed out on anything (even if it's a speculative anything like, idk, CLove's fake love child with Steve Coogan actually being Ryan's) please tell me.
brb hopefully having an amazing night. ♥
these girls | or, a few reasons why david ryan adams writes such great songs (most of the time)
» full zip «
» individual mp3 folder «
» tracks 01-12 | tracks 13-23 «
23 tracks | mp3 | 01:18:14 | 101.95mb
ryan adams | hey there mrs. lovely
well, girl sometimes I feel just a boy
put here on the earth for you to toy 'round with
I'm the plastic three-inch armies you destroy
I'm the monster underneath your bed y'ain't afraid of yet."These Girls" which appears on Easy Tiger (2007) is a reworked version of a song called "Hey There Mrs. Lovely," which dates back to 1999.
(I feel that using these tracks to bookend the mix is a stroke of genius.)
whiskeytown | 16 days
got sixteen days
one for every time I've gone away
one for every time I should have stayed
should have wore my wedding ring.Whiskeytown formed in 1994 when Ryan was nineteen or twenty. Caitlin Carey and Ryan were the only two constant members until they disbanded in 1999. Caitlin provided backing vocals, and played the violin and the fiddle. You can check out her solo work at her myspace, or she has a few free downloads in her website's "music" section.
cindy cashdollar | speedin' west
[instrumental]Lap steel guitars, you guys. asdfghjkl; (This is even more awesome because it sounds like it should be Super Mario music!)
Initially, The Cardinals of Ryan Adams & The consisted of Ryan Adams, Brad Pemberton, JP Bowersock, Catherine Popper, and Cindy Cashdollar. The band toured in 2004 and recorded Cold Roses (2005), for which Cindy provided backing vocals, and played the steel guitar and resonator guitar. Cashdollar left in 2005 (not accompanying them on the promotional tour for Cold Roses) and was replaced by Jon Graboff (♥♥♥).
I feel I should mention that Catherine Popper played bass guitar, piano and contributed backing vocals but left the band in 2006, just before I saw Ryan and the gang for the first time.
ryan adams | note to self: don't die
I'm as blue
I'm as blue as the ocean is true, it's just reflections
of the sky
I'm as cold
I'm as cold as the stories you told but never sick
enough to die.I never know what to say about Rock N Roll (2003). I absolutely hated it when I first heard it because it's three hundred different types of ridiculous, from the being funded by Courtney Love (more on that coming up) to the wretched lyrics to Ryan thanking his then-girlfriend, Parker Posey, in the liner notes and naming her as the "Exe'cute'ive Producer," appearing "courtesy of her bad self." Yes, yes he did that. Seriously. She co-wrote the track and uh, sings the nobody baby bit near the end.
It's a trashy-awesome album, and fills me with a sense of fond oh, RYAN-ness. Ooh, and Ryan also wrote a song especially for Posey, entitled "Hey Parker, It's Christmas," the dork. Annnd there's this interesting and adorkable interview here where Parker interviews Ryan about "their" album. RA: Sometimes you're so cute I want to punch myself in the mouth.
edit: Oh Christ. This article (scroll down) informs me that Rock N Roll was written/recorded/released after Ryan and Leona Naess had broken off their engagement, and gives a little bit of lyric analysis to how his album and hers (Leona Naess, 2003) correspond. LOL.
hole | celebrity skin
honeysuckle, she's full of poison
she obliterated everything she kissed
now she's fading
somewhere in Hollywood
I'm glad I came here
with your pound of flesh.Oh, Courtney, Courtney, Courtney. So. Ryan's label refused to fund or messed up the funding or something or other got fucked up for Rock N Roll. Ryan was determined to make this album and somehow in all this it comes to light a few months ago that it was funded by a certain Courtney Love. Or in her words, he stole $858,000 of Frances Bean's trust fund (does that makje youf eel like a big man ? stealing from a suicide? A MARTYRED HERO?) and it took C.Love a while to notice because she has twenty-nine American Express cards.
and when i met Ryan we had a mild little flirtation, why not? but i made the deathly stupid decision to [..] have very safe sex with him ( hes pretty dirty and man ive been around but im the virgin mary comparitevly)
ryan adams | do miss america
hey, come everybody do Miss America
hey, you know when she goes down it's hysterical
so, tell me how you feel without your medicine
hold your head feeling paranoid
running down the street from a mergatroid.HEY YOU KNOW WHEN YOU GO DOWN ITS HYSTERICAL. an excellent lyric wouldnt you think.? still shooting smack? hows that going for you? A+ way to end a diatribe C.Love. A. Plus.
I like to believe this song is actually about Courtney Love, because Ryan is capable of being that big a passive-aggressive dick. And to add insult to injury, ex-Hole bassist and childhood friend of Rufus Wainwright (I feel this is relevant due to the glee it gives me) Melissa Auf Der Maur plays bass on this track and provides backing vocals for other songs on Rock N Roll.
mandy moore | candy
like sugar to my heart
I'm cravin' for you
I'm missin' you like candy
you know who you are
your love's as sweet as candy
I'll be forever yours
love always, Mandy.Did Ryan Adams and Mandy Moore have a thing earlier this year? I fucking hope so. He even posted pictures of both of them in his apartment on his since-deleted Tumblr. ♥ But as New York Magazine points out, "They must have fallen for one another while working closely together on her album Wild Hope last year. Wasn't he still with Jessica Joffe then?"
(Ryan denies all, though.)
ryan adams | banter: ninjas & alanis morrisette (live 04/10/08)
[...] and one of the ninjas is going to be really mild-mannered and write me a really mean card. "dear Ryan, I'm a ninja. why did you blow my cool? consider this card the verbal equivalent of a throwing star. fu srsly lol xo, ninja." anyway this next song, I wrote this song because I wanted to suck face with Alanis Morrisette. it DID NOT WORK.EFF YOU ESS-AR-ESS EL-WHY EL-OH-EL EX OH, NINJA. I FUCKING LOVE THIS CRAZY MAN.
The song the stage banter preceded was "Desire," which is a fuckin' pretty song.
ryan adams w/ alanis morrisette | 1974 (live 02/20/01)
I was born in 1974
on a calm meticulous street
someplace in the sun
oh the air was sweet
and enough lights sprang sparks
through the window of the room
not as raw to a ridiculous tune
slightly out of key in the mother hour
[...]
I was born in 1974
in a breached feet-first way
my twin opened the door
my very first dose of chivalry
I was dawned princess potential potent
with gold star and matching impression
big between two doors
small and loved and proud and unthreatened."Alanis and I wrote a song we're thinking about putting on it, but she's in D.C. kicking ass about this record company thing," he says. "[The song] is called '1974'; it's the year she and I were born. She wrote her verse about her, I wrote my verse about me, then she wrote one about me and I wrote one about her, and then we end it together. I read a [live] review that said it's about a shared birth year and breaking bones. It kind of is actually."
It's possible I may have OD'd the mix with Alanis, but I can't help loving her.
alanis morrisette | my humps
the boys they wanna sex me
they always standing next to me
always dancing next to me
tryin'a feel my hump, hump
lookin' at my lump, lump
you can look but you can't touch it
if you touch it I'ma start some drama
you don't want no drama
no, no drama, no, no, no, no drama.LOLOLOL. HEARTS. HEARTS IN MY EYES. I don't think Ryan and Alanis ever dated, but I do think that they would be ridiculous amounts of fun to spend an evening with. Did you know that he thanks her five separate times in the liner notes for Gold (2001) because he lost a bet? Dorrrrrrks.
Check out Alanis' parody music video for " My Humps"!
winona ryder & angelina jolie | downtown
just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
how can you lose?After moving to New York and going through a traumatic break-up which spawned a great album in 2000 (more on that later), Ryan moved to LA and met Winona Ryder and had a did-he-didn't-he-he-denies-it thing with her and made another album in 2001.
Gold, the album, is very LA influenced, and a bunch of the songs such as "Goodnight Hollywood Blvd," "When The Stars Go Blue," and "Nobody Girl" are speculated to be about Winona.
leona naess ft. ryan adams | leave your boyfriends behind
I've got happy fingers
you've got triggers
keeping an eye on the ghost that we made
one foot out the door and the other on your eyes
hands up, let's toast to us again
'cause we're not ready, we're not even close
we're not like the rest, no, we ain't like most.I'm assuming that Leona Naess and Ryan were together from mid-2002 until they broke their engagement in 2003. I don't know if it's written about her, but she's the girl he snogs in the video for "Answering Bell" (released 2002).
Ryan then left her for Parker Posey ("they" say he was giving her mandolin lessons for her role in A Mighty Wind) and Leona retaliated by selling t-shirts with the slogan "My X Is A Wanker." Though clearly from this bonus track from Leona's 2008 album Thirteens they seem to have reconciled... somewhat. (Plus, they toured with one another sometime in 2006 so.)
beth orton | this one's gonna bruise
do you even know what's going on in a heart anymore?
constellations turned into little polaroids in a cardboard box
[...]
and I wanted so desperately to say
that you could trust me but I was lying anyway
okay, okay, what a thing to lose
left out in the rain, misuse
you'll learn one day won't you?
you'll learn some day won't you?
what you had was good for a while then it changed
got too intense made it strange
and I feel bad for you I feel bad for you
but I don't know why I don't know why
'cos I'm as dead as you.In 2002 Beth Orton released Daybreaker which was where she collaborated (in true alt-country style) with a bunch of musicians and so met Ryan.
"I thought he was an ass when I first met him," Orton admitted. "No offense, but I thought he was a cocky American. But then we got in the studio and he was wonderful. There is a beauty and wiseness expressed in his voice ... I thought he must be about 40. I suppose I was really attracted to that and to the crack of his voice [on his album] ... I'm not saying I heard it with my mind, I heard it with my heart."
Ryan wrote this song, and Beth sang it, and if you read the article she's kinda shifty about it. Did-they-didn't-they?
ryan adams | english girls approximately
tall drink of water, she's a Norfolk waterfall
little daybreaker, she's a shootin' like a cannonball
crazy like a rocket when you're coming through my radio
kept me in your bed till the wintertime turned to fall
fall time coming, and I guess my little bird can sing
come on Elizabeth, a come on a Bethany
come on further, I'm tired and I want to sleep
my little dove do, and I guess she was done with me
said you didn't love me, it was right on time, I was just about to tell you that it'll be alright
said you didn't love me, didn't want a thing, English girls can be so mean.Oh yeah, they totally did. Completely and utterly and undeiably about Beth Orton. From 2004's Love Is Hell.
just three words, my love: you meant everything.
Also on Daybreaker is the song "Concrete Sky" which Ryan and Beth duet on. This section is making me cry already and I haven't even got to the most gut-wrenching part.
ryan adams | jesus (don't touch my baby)
in California
forever summer and hot
into the ocean
you're smiling a lot
on sandy beaches
and the blankets are hot
you're in my arms
and I kiss your heart
Jesus, don't touch my baby
Jesus, don't touch my baby
Jesus, don't touch my baby
she's all that I got.A lot of Ryan's songs, across all his albums, are all about Carrie Hamilton. She and Ryan were together for a short while before she died from lung and brain cancer in January 2002 while he was -I believe- in Australia but which devastated him. Demolition (2003) is dedicated to her, and "Jesus (Don't Touch My Baby)" is the closing track. She's also the woman in the liner pictures for Gold.
My heart hurts so much right now. :(
ryan adams | dear chicago
think about you all the time
it's strange and hard to deal
think about you lying there
and those blankets lie so still
nothing breathes here in the cold
nothing moves or even smiles
I've been thinking some of suicide
but there's bars out here for miles
sorry about the every kiss
every kiss you wasted bad
I think the thing you said was true
I'm going to die alone and sad."Dear Chicago" is also taken from Demolition (2003) but it's about Amy Lombardi (she's a publicist and has been Neko Case's for eight years), the woman he wrote 2000's amazing and gut-wrenching Heartbreaker about. Yeah, the whole freaking album. Anyway, they moved to New York together but she broke up with him shortly after and then he made a fucking brilliant album. Guess where she's originally from. Go on.
I think I've fallen out of love, I think I've fallen out of love with you.
I like how it can be read as a transitioning song between Heartbreaker/Amy and Gold/Winona (with hints of Amy, "Harder Now That It's Over" is based on an event where Ryan literally threw his drink in that guy's face - one of the guys from The New Pornographers who was a client of Amy's. And apparently that's why Neko Case hates him. lolz).
ryan adams | amy
is God playing evil tricks on me?
is God playing evil tricks on me?
oh, I love you Amy
do you still love me?Oh, Ryan. ;_;
rachael yamagata | i want you
you simplified me down to slogans on the wall
I took offense, but you were right about them all
my friends are telling me I shouldn't waste my time
but I can't concentrate until I make you mine
I'm drawing cards and making wishes down by the well
who would've known I'd lose myself in that old hotel.Contributed by playing piano and providing backing vocals on the tracks "Let it Ride", "Cold Roses", and "Friends" from Cold Roses (2006). Interestingly, she was also a co-writer on Mandy Moore's Wild Hope (2007) and toured with her.
[wiki | myspace | website]
ryan adams & the cardinals | sweet illusions
you never knew me but I did my best
I'm just lonely inside I guess
you gave me everything
you really tried, thanks
if we were nothing and we're only the past
well I'm just living in a dream I guess.let me go, I'm only letting you down. Jesus. I think this is Ryan's song to Parker Posey, as they split up just before Cold Roses was released in 2005. It's never been a secret that Ryan's done shitloads of drugs, but I think just before they split up and obviously after was the peak (or one of them) in his drug-taking which eventually ended up in him doing really crazy shit like speedballs. >:|
Then sometime in 2006 he started dating Jessica Joffe who played a big part in him getting sober (Valium therapy and occasionally attending AA meetings), but they split up in early 2008. I don't know much about her other than she's some sort of model/socialite/newspaper columnist? Gawker was hilariously obsessed with their relationship.
ryan adams | two
I got a really good heart
I just can't catch a break
if I could, I'd treat you like you wanted me to I promise.The first single from 2006's Easy Tiger. Sheryl Crowe provides backing vocals on this. Back in 2004, Ryan and Sheryl did duet of " If It Makes You Happy."
It's weird but Ryan's self-pity in this song makes me eyeroll while his hundreds of other songs don't. I think the fact that it's more pop-rock-slick than his previous work adds to it. And it's not a bad thing, it's just... different? (Personally, I read it as a kinda country-style wife-beater apology song.)
[wiki | myspace | website]
alanis morrisette | you oughta know
'cause the love that you gave that we made wasn't able
to make it enough for you to be open wide, no
and every time you speak her name
does she know how you told me you'd hold me
until you died? 'til you died
but you're still alive.I think Alanis would tell Ryan how it is without any bullshit tbh. Plus this is still a badass song. \o/
ryan adams | these girls
and I toy with you
it makes me tired and i wanna go to bed
these are better off in my head
these girls are better off in my head
these girls are better off in my head.In its original incarnation, "Hey There Mrs. Lovely" was rooted in a dying romance with a specific person. Adams sang it in a wounded yelp, mourning a doomed relationship he felt powerless to either save or end. He sang in a key of utter hopelessness. [...] In contrast to the original version's raw emotion, Adams sings "These Girls" in a weary, seen-it-all, just-short-of-lazy croon. While the opening verse seems to be about someone very much like the original song's subject, the chorus mutates "These Girls" into a jaded ode to the sort of groupies a critically acclaimed rock star might encounter.
- Ryan Adams edits himself, The News & Observer
BONUS TRACK
ryan adams | sylvia plath
I wish I had a Sylvia Plath
busted tooth and a smile
and cigarette ashes in her drink
the kind that goes out and then sleeps for a week
the kind that goes out on her own
to give me a reason, for well, I dunno.
GENERAL/OVERLAPPING "ROMANTIC" GIST: Amy Lombardi -> Winona Ryder -> Carrie Hamilton -> Beth Orton -> Leona Naess -> Parker Posey -> Courtney Love -> Jessica Joffe -> Mandy Moore.
OTHER WOMEN OF NOTE:
» Norah Jones, sings on "Dear John" (Jacksonville City Nights, 2005) which is one of my favourite Ryan songs and possibly the only time I have appreciated Ms. Jones [wiki | myspace | website]
» Anna Faris, namedropped in "Look Who Got A Website (Dot Com Motherfucker)" [wiki | imdb | website]
» Emmylou Harris, provides backing vocals on "Oh My Sweet Carolina" (Heartbreaker, 2000) [wiki | myspace | website]
» Gillian Welch, sings on "Sweet Lil Gal" (Heartbreaker, 2000) and co-wrote "Enemy Fire" (Gold, 2001) and is the long term music partner (and was once in a relationship with) David Rawlings who co-wrote "To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)" (HB) and "Touch, Feel, & Lose" (Gold) [wiki | myspace | website]
» Marianne Faithfull provides backing vocals on a few tracks on Love Is Hell pt. 2 (2003)
The information in this mix was compiled to the best of my knowledge... which was garnered from three nights of intensive googling. I'm not saying that everything here is absolutely correct and true because a) the vast majority of these learnings come from THE INTERNET and b) sometimes I don't even think Ryan knows what's going on with his relationships, so how should we? He says one thing in one source and then days, weeks, or months later says something else entirely contradictory (either on purpose or because he's just like that) - and I love him despite it.
This mix is supposed to be extremely lolarious and Ryan-mocking, but also a celebration of some really cool women (yes, I like them all, even Mandy Moore - she's freaking adorable!) so if I've missed out on anything (even if it's a speculative anything like, idk, CLove's fake love child with Steve Coogan actually being Ryan's) please tell me.
brb hopefully having an amazing night. ♥