1.Crossed Out Name – A heartbreaker off his last (official) release. An ache of a New York… “for everything there is a word, everything but this”. Just a strummed out sorrow.
2. Two – And here is the other side… sounds like the same girl, a coupla years earlier. Filled with a tense hopefulness: as if he is so fragile he can just see where it is going.
3. New York, New York – A really and true 9/11 song. The video was recorded the day before across the river from WTC, with the towers shimmering over Ryan. “Hell, I still love you New York”. It’s an end song for what today feels like a different error. I met Marie Lynn maybe a year after and this as one of our songs.
4. Fix it – Sure it’s good, but it isn’t perfect. The blues inflections puts me off and the hook isn’t hooky enough for the triples.
5. Come Pick Me Up – An earlier era… the harmonica makes you think he is about to lunge into a Neil Young song… and maybe he is!
6. When The Stars Go Blue – I’ve heard a real good cover of this (by everybody from the Corrs to Tim McGraw to some folks from One Tree Hill. But nothing is better than the orginal becomes nobody sounds so sweet in their upper register during the chorus.
7. Burning Photographs – Another girl… everytime I listen to Ryan I am reminded of my sorrow.
8. Everybody Knows – Minor song off Easy tiger.
9. Wish You Were Here – Reminds me of a girl who I dated and who had an abortion. “It’s totally fucked up…’
10. I See Monsters – Adams has called his next album Love Is Hell part three, a beautiful song about nightmares.
11. Easy Plateau – With the Cardinals, for some reason this reminds me of nirvana in calm mode.
12. Cobwebs – A ho hummer off the newbie
13. Born Into A Light – Twangs like Whiskeytown though subdued.
14. Oh My God, Whatever, Etc. – Second best song off easy tiger, but easily the best name. AND HE LIVES UP TO IT!!!!! I want the title on my tombstone…
15. Let It Ride – Oh my God? Is that drums??? It kinda sucks anyway, sorta a country rumbler. Whatevwer, etc.
16. Cold Roses – Title track off the hit and miss double. This one misses.
17. Wonderwall – Why did he turn the Oasis classic in Adams at his most emo? Dunno but I wish he hadn’t.
18. English Girls Approximately – It’s like a cold glass of water and I’m pouring it down the sink.
19. Peaceful Valley – From another one of his doggies, Jacksonville City Nights, country blah as he overextended himself all the way through 2005. I bought two single CDs and a double CD by Adams that year and none of them sustained it and this one was worst.
20. She’s Lost Total Control – This version is off a boot recorded December 2003 and it is beautiful -like his voices has the scrape of Conor and Patrick. And the song is a great little rock anyway…