Love Is Hell was the first offering I ever heard from Adams in my brother's car through a stereo that only knew one voice for once that CD entered, it refused to leave. The stereo also didn't play anything in order so despite being track 7, Shadowlands came through first. A type of sadness, a 15 year old me hadn't met yet. From my own interpretation, from the first listen, Shadowlands is a place you find yourself after you've lost something. The thick mist of longing for what once was. Maybe it's death or simply a love gone bad or a far stretch, possibly a piece of yourself that feels missing. This song found itself to my stereo today, wildly without permission and all I knew for definite was today I felt every 318 seconds of it like never before. Nostalgia mixed with something new. Sadness but with arms that wrapped twice around me. The sort of sad that comforts you. See, music is magical this way. It makes you think you understand it and then presents itself anew when you most need it. And today, I needed Shadowlands for I am there but do not remember the journey and do not know what I have lost but those last two minutes of guitars felt like mourning and as it faded into the nothing, it sounded an awful lot like home. When ‘Love Is Hell’ first hit the shelves it was divided into two parts and it was growing older that made me realise why. The record delves so deep into emotion and is so raw and ready to rip everything from you without mercy it is too much for a single serving. Put plainly, it is a sad record on the surface but it is the sort of sadness that teaches you something and Ryan Adams takes you on a journey through his emotions and you feel it and at times you relate to it and you understand what spilling truly is. That art is not only letting go but it is also giving others something to hold onto….
Let us rise
from the wreckage
of our woes.
GIF O Clock
Hey, yo, this gif is sad but blanket cowels are needed today.
Love is Hell
This is the first song of Ryan Adams I ever heard and the one below grew to become my favourite. A fascinating view of after death. I could talk about this record for days but I won't, instead listen to it how it was originally released. From Political Scientist to Avalanche and then the rest of the album as a follow up, you won't regret it.
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