Whenever I’m going through a rough time Ryan Adams music helps. It may not make any of it go away, on the contrary, sometimes his songs hit deep, and make me feel the rough even more. But, sometimes that’s what needs to happen. It can be cathartic, and it can help to open me up and feel more, which leads to helping me think more, too. When things are rough with me, and with my life, I tend to close off and put up walls. Those walls can become too much for me to get inside of, and not just keep others away. Music always helps to hinder their construction. It can also help me while I work through things. I hate reacting before I’ve had time to think. Things are said that can’t always be taken back when I react before thinking. Its why anger is so hard on me. Sometimes its okay to say “I need space to think.”

And sometimes its more than okay to turn to a Ryan Adams song. Today I’m turning to my all-time favorite Ryan Adams song, “Starlite Diner”, to help me feel and think, and to be today’s Song of the Day.

“Starlite Diner” is track 6 on Ryan Adams’ 2005 album, 29. It was released on December 19, on Lost Highway Records. The album was produced by Ethan Johns and was recorded prior to the formation of backing band The Cardinals. It was the last of three albums that Ryan released in 2005. The album’s cover art was drawn by Adams. (from Wikipedia)

The first time I heard “Starlite Diner” I was living in Chicago, and a story inspired from the song wrote itself in my mind. That story’s never left me, and it may someday evolve into something more. Maybe someday I’ll write it to life. The song is one of those forever me songs, with truths of myself tucked deep inside its melodies and lyrics, and tucked deep inside my love for the song itself, and all the memories, and inspirations, it evokes.

“Starlite Diner” by Ryan Adams
from the album, 29 (2005)
Song of the Day

“Is it possible to love someone too much?
You bet.”

To me, the Starlite diner lives in my mind as an imagined place where the coffee comes from a bottomless pot, and where writer’s block never comes to share the table with me, just inspiration, and desire.

Today, it’s doing something more. That imagined diner is a place I can sit and think, and sort out why things have gotten so rough. Its a place I can write, and cry, and try to come up with reasons and ways to get through this. Maybe at the bottom of that bottomless pot, there are answers along with the coffee grounds. Maybe.