"Most all of the songs I write now concern Jacksonville. For a very long time I wouldn’t write about it or even think about it because I had a very hard time growing up there. And the town itself has been going through a very hard time since before I was born. But I dropped out of high school there I bought my first records there and I will probably die and be buried there eventually and for some reason I can identify with that place now all those fucking people live there because they can’t imagine living anyplace else. It’s all they know and they’re scared and don’t like change. So that place is inhabited by all these old fashioned people with ideas about the world that just aren’t viable anyplace else. They all drink a lot or not. It is the oldest wrongest place in the world and it’s where I’m from and it’s where my songs are coming from."
—
Ryan Adams on Jacksonville, NC, about 75 miles south of where I grew up (Greenville, NC).
From an excerpt in Ryan Adams: Losering, a Story of Whiskeytown, by my friend David Menconi down in Raleigh. It just came out. Looking forward to reading it! (available on Amazon, too)
