Ryan Adams and The Cardinals : My Winding Wheel : London Symphony Orchestra’s St. Lukes, London, England, August 3, 2007

A bit late to the ball game, we discovered this song in the Fall of 1999, thanks very much to our well-versed fellow archivist Leo Carmody, Esq., who hails from Sharpsburg, North Carolina, not far from Ryan Adams’ native Jacksonville, North Carolina.  We were immediately hooked.  North Carolina is, and, unfortunately, it seems, is destined no longer to be, a textile state.  This art is rapidly disappearing.  The threads that once were woven from raw material are now cut, spent.  Elsewhere, our tales are being woven by foreign hands.  What’s more precious than a tale spun from our own lives, our stories, our Now?  Adams presents us with the raw material for one such thread; working girl and working guy head out for a night on the mill town, a blessed respite from the constant murmur of the millworks, their shuttles, their looms.  Standing for hours on end.  The guy, having given all he’s got during his shift, wants to impress the girl.  He thinks he has what it takes.  He’s not sure.  She’s pretty in her dress.  She’s interested, but not obviously so–she’s aloof.  He scuffs his boot, takes a swig from the bottle.  He decides that stepping back is the best approach.  Go on ahead.  Sash-ay yourself around.  You ain’t gonna find anyone better’n me.  He thinks this, and he hopes, but he is not entirely confident.  From this, the song emerges.

We think he gets the girl.  Otherwise, we’ve nothing left over which to fantasize.  Ryan’s a damn good storyteller and an even better songwriter.  We’d like a reprise of this song with an ending, but we realize that tales, once woven, might not necessarily be finished as they were started.  Someone, somewhere–someone somewhere you may not know–has to pick up the thread and finish it.

The Rolling Stones : Fool to Cry : Live at Pavilion de Paris (Les Abbattoirs), Paris, France, June 4, 1976

Mesdames et Messieurs, Les Rolling Stones.

Released originally as part of the Les Rolling Stones Aux Abbattoirs film, this footage captures elegantly a watershed moment during the Stones 1976 tour of Europe.  Mick Taylor’s just left the band, just as the they were hitting their mid-70’s stride that propelled them to the arena-rocker status they’ve enjoyed since then.  Some say that the soul left the band with Mick, perhaps presciently, as subsequent releases from the Stones became increasingly accessible, increasingly mainstream, more glimmer-boy Mick-centric, rather than infused with the rich legacy of blues and early rock and roll.  See, e.g., the progression of Some Girls, Emotional Rescue, and Tattoo You.

This song bleeds emotion, and is probably the best on Black and Blue, certainly the most successful hit from the album.  A slow, soulful ballad, it’s mined from the same rich vein of balladry for which the Stones are revered and which yielded such gems as “Wild Horses,” “Angie,” “Let it Loose,” and “I Got the Blues.”  Interesting tidbit: Keith Richards fell asleep on stage during this song later in the tour in Germany.

Je suis un imbécile à pleurer.

Jeff Buckley : Lover, You Should’ve Come Over : Live at Cabaret Metro, Chicago, Illinois, May 13, 1995

Jeff Buckley’s demise was Byronic.  A young man, in the throes of a romantic notion, decides to swim the length of an irresistible tide.  Byron, the Bosphorus; Buckley, the Mississippi.  Byron by the skin of his teeth.  Buckley, neither the first, nor the last, to be claimed by the nefarious currents of the Mississippi.  Still, the pair share many characteristics, including the ability to convey via their respective media the yearning instinct of youth to attain and realize the absolute perfection of love–which at that age = physical expression, primarily–but also the idealistic love of the dreamer and the dream, the seeker and the sought, the idealist and the ideal.  We love this because it represents the purest of expressions of frustrated lust and longing, much of which we experienced at a point when we had neither the maturity nor the wherewithal to appreciate or act upon the impulses to our benefit.  Now that we do, we’re left simply to watch, linger, and fantasize about what we’d have done in their boots.  Ah, youth; it’s wasted on the young.