Woke up with the chains of love in my head this morning

This post is part of an ongoing series in which I document the songs which are in my head immediately upon waking. I've been making them for a long time now.

Do you wake up with songs in your head on a regular basis? What song was in your head this morning? Comment below, I'd love to hear from you!

What song was it today?

I've been listening to Ryan Adams' album Ashes & Fire lately. It had been a while, that's for sure. I didn't even have it in my Apple Music library.

What made me want to listen to it? I follow Ryan Adams on Instagram and he's been posting about how he relearning a bunch of the songs from that album. I thought that was interesting that he'd have to relearn them, but he's a very prolific writer. He mentioned that sometimes when he's working on an album, he writes at a pace that's faster than he can even know the songs. If that makes sense.

This isn't even one of my favorite songs from the album, but I don't dislike it. If the point of this series of posts was to just mention my favorite songs, it would certainly be a completely different list of songs in many ways.

Ryan Adams has been a favorite songwriter of mine for pretty much 20 years now, but I'd also say he's a bit hit-or-miss sometimes. That's how it goes sometimes when people put out a ton of music as fast as they can write it. The pace is impressive, but sometimes editing is necessary if quality is also the goal.

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This week I’m relearning all the songs front to back on Ashes and Fire. That might sound weird but being me sometimes means writing songs at pace faster than I can even know them all. Sometimes the inspiration overwhelms me and it’s almost like ‘automatic writing’ - like I’m just taking dictation from a higher source. ( in the past I might have emphasized ‘higher’ but I’m not on that train anymore, thank god ) As I’ve dusted off the original typed lyrics ( yes I STILL use a manual typewriter- a device that only yeilds optimism ) I’ve learned this is my ultimate love letter to LA. Even more than GOLD. Im really proud of these songs- there’s such a peaceful sentiment of feeling obsolete, shadows of the New Yorker I’ve always been, and visions of the nuanced and beautiful colors of the lost wild western landscape of Los Angeles. I hear so much X and even New Orleans in the chords. Like Steely Dan Aja I guess I had to step outside of this place I call home to fully see it. The love I felt and still feel is so ripe and breathless- it all feels like a miracle - especially on songs like I love you and I don’t know what to say, or dirty rain ( a song about being trapped in a flash rainstorm traversing the neighborhood that breaks up both parts of Canal ( or was it Saint Charles ) I’ll post my progress as I go. Sending all my best and all the love I have to everybody today. X

A post shared by Ryan Adams (Hive account@ryanadams) on Jan 28, 2020 at 5:01pm PST

The list so far