Sticks to You

Ryan Adams's 29 has gotten under my skin only in the way that two other albums have -- The Cure's Disintergration and The Replacements All Shook Down. Like those two albums, it works as an album with repeated themes. Maybe, it is because I'm only nine months older than Ryan that I identify with it so. It could be the references to losing friends. It could be the references to friends having, and losing, babies while some act as if I am already dead. Maybe, it is all the water symbolism (death) and all the events that happened with Katrina. I'm at the point where I can't critically listen to it anymore. It is, like those two other albums, a part of me. "Elizabeth, You Were Born to Play that Part" and "Voices" gets me every time. I think of friends that I've been separated from after Katrina. I think of the kids I taught that I don't know if they are alive.