It was October 10, 2001. I had lived in New York City for just over a month and a half. It was my freshman year at NYU, but it was Felicity’s senior year at the University of New York, and that night’s season opening episode featured a song that captured me. I mean captured me. Now if you recall, the WB, at the end of episodes, would feature the album covers of the songs they used during the episode, in exchange for cheaper licensing rights obvi. And so, after the episode was over, I eagerly waited to find out the song’s title and artist: La Cienega Just Smiled by Ryan Adams. Jumping onto my computer, I wanted to find out more, wanted to hear more. The first thing I found out was that Mr. Adams had just played Irving Plaza (which I could practically see from my dorm room window at “The Palladium”) exactly one week prior. So close! But so far away! The second thing I found out was that he had recorded a song (and video) that would remain, to this day, a touchstone for me (or, if I were to get all Oprah on you, I would, in fact, call it a heartstone). Regardless, I became enraptured and diligently followed his quite voluminous output over the years, often getting into fights with haters friends over his artistic merit but defending him and fighting for him and calling him, as I still do to this day, our generation’s Bob Dylan.
And I hold you close in the back of my mind
Feels so good but damn it makes me hurt
And I’m too scared to know to how I feel about you now
La Cienega just smiles…”see ya around”
I missed out on that next-door Irving Plaza concert by just a week. Even if it was sold out months and months before hand, that week-old after-the-fact loss haunts me to this day. Over the years, I’ve missed out on several of his concerts because I wasn’t on the ball in buying tickets immediately. Until this year. Over two months ago, I bought tickets to his upcoming New York concert. Website malfunctions and work obligations be damned: I got tickets. And so this Tuesday, ten years in the making, I’ll finally hear Ryan Adams live. And at Carnegie Hall, no less. And, as I do one thing well and only one thing well (that’s obsession), I’m posting a Ryan Adams song every day until then. Songs that mean something to me, songs that I want to hear live (he’s performing acoustic), songs that I just love. I start tonight with the one that started the fire.
