Soundtrack of My Life

Song: Firecracker
Artist: Ryan Adams
Album: Gold (2001)

Dude is a little off his rocker and that's okay by me. In fact, it might be the reason Ryan Adams is such a talented musician and someone I really like listening to. Sometimes brilliance comes from the crazy fuckers.

I got into this album off the strength of the debut single, "New York, New York," a real catchy, ode to how awesome NYC has always been. Hearing that tune and reading a great review of the album in Blender sent me across the street to Music World to get this disc. "New York, New York" bats lead-off, but it's the two hole song Firecracker that still plays in heavy rotation on the computer and makes an appearance here today.


Adams roots are called alt-country, but whatever you want to call it, I call it catchy and cool, at least on this album and this song. Same as a lot of tracks that have made it to the Soundtrack over the years, "Firecracker" is a fairly simplistic song; acoustic guitars, harmonica, some drums for a back beat and that's about it. It's easy, but it works really well.

What really hooked me about this song was, well, the hook:

Well everybody wants to go forever
I just wanna burn out hard and bright
I just wanna be your firecracker
And maybe be your baby tonight

I actually used that opening pair as my MSN quote for ages before my mom, thinking I was speaking of my own demise, insisted I change it or never hear from her again. Obviously I changed the message; can't go without talking to Faye...

For me, it's about people who want to hang on well beyond their prime and force things that clearly aren't working and I get that. While everyone else wants to make their 15 minutes last 15 years, how's about I just rock this 15 minutes and we have a little cuddle while we're at it?

Personally, I never want to be that guy who is hanging on for dear life, in anything. I want to have my fun and have my time and move on accordingly. The earrings will come out the minute they look stupid. The wardrobe will change with age. And things like The Shameless Self-Promotion Tour will one day wrap up when this writing thing has run it's course, probably before.

While I'm here and while I'm doing this, I'm going to do it full out. Then one day, I'm going to fade into the background, never to be heard from again.

That's the way it should be, at least in my books. Ryan Adams' too apparently.