Here's to you Ryan

Storytelling, at least in the traditional sense, is slowly becoming a lost art. There are few minstrels left in the world. Not that film is not an evocative and powerful way to tell a story, but I think it can desensitize us to the beauty of story telling in song. The art of song writing has a singular place, it is a collision of thought and soul, words and music, definitive meanings and heartcrying tones. If you are not familiar with the verse in the header of my nonblog, it is from my favorite album of the last two years: Ryan Adams' Cold Roses.
There are very few talented lyricists in our day. A few that come to mind are Adam Duritz, Stephen Jenkins, Ben Gibbard (sp?), and Patty Griffin. I know I'm leaving off many. I wouldn't say that Ryan Adams is one of the best lyricists, but I would say he is one of the best songwriters. And of today's lyricists, I would say the only real storytellers are Gibbard and Adams. The other thing is that words and music have a heightening effect on each other. A good melody enhances the lyrics. Good lyrics can enhance the music, although, I think, not the to the same degree. Regardless, I want to talk about this verse:

We burned the cottonfields down in the valley
and ended up with nothing but scars
Scars became the lessons that we gave to our children
after the war

If words- be it prose, poetry, lyrics, what-have-you - are really good, they take you somewhere, they become part of your life. Those three and a half lines, tell a story, a huge story for a small verse. They encapsulate so much. How true is that? How many scars have we inherited? How many wars has man seen and how infinite are the effects we have felt? But, scars give us a story to tell. Scars teach us. Scars also handicap us. I will talk a lot about scars. This thingy that I write on sometimes will probably have a lot more gravity than anything from the past, namely because I'm starting some serious stuff come August and will have serious things to talk about. I have a phrase I write in my own personal stuff a lot. When I look back over my writings from all my travels (15 countires in the last year, not to brag, just to give you perspective to my perspective) I have written this phrase down from every country: f_cked and fallen. That is the state of our world, the scar we can all feel and see. But again Mr. Adams: a bluebird may take enough rain to be too heavy to fly, "but ain't no bluebird ever get too heavy to sing." That is the only reason I ever write, it is my song.