How You Get the Girl

Interpretation was the name of today's game.

For music lovers, the big event this Monday was the digital release of Ryan Adams' cover of Taylor Swift's entire "1989" album.

I'm not going to lie, I have a copy of "1989," not because I'm a devoted T Swift fan but because it was gifted to me last Christmas and I was curious. After months of listening to it, there are still songs I can't stand (see: "Bad Blood" and "I Know Things") but there are also practically perfect pop gems that I still enjoy even after months of listening.

But the thought of Ryan Adams - let's be clear here: Ryan flippin' Adams - covering the entire album in his distinctive style called to me like a ganache-filled chocolate cake with white icing.

So, seeing that it had been released today, I sat down to listen to it. Don't judge, but at the moment, I'm on my fourth or fifth listen. Part of that is that he's done exactly what he did when he covered Oasis' "Wonderwall" a few years back: made someone else's songs completely his own.

He's replaced her synths and young woman angst with typical Ryan Adams shimmering guitars and reverb, both like catnip to me. Even the songs I couldn't stand on the original appeal to me in his voice, with his arrangements.

One of my many Facebook friends who was also listening to the album today commented that the Ryan Adams version gave him and other men permission to admit they like Taylor Swift's songs. At my venerable age, I need no one's permission to like what I like, but I get what he means.

Ryan's "1989" takes the bones of what is indisputably a 21st century pop masterpiece (even if I find some phrases overused and far too much emphasis on looks in her lyrics for my taste) dressed up in the earnest, guitar-based clothing of one of my favorite dysfunctional singer-songwriters.

I can already tell that it's going to be a stellar road trip CD. Damn, Ryan, couldn't you have released this in time for my beach trip last week?

By the time I tore myself away from "1989" to walk, it was already 4:00, possibly a record for late walking for me. But it was also lightly raining and a beautiful time to get out there and take in the moist air.

Six blocks from home on my way back, I saw a front door open and out came a familiar face: a member of Richmond Comedy Coalition and easily one of the funniest improv comedians in Richmond. We fell into easy conversation as he joined me walking west on Marshall Street.

Since it's impossible right now not to discuss the bike race, we got right into it and I was thrilled when he said what I was thinking: that I'm already sick of the Debbie Downers complaining that (take your pick) there aren't as many visitors here yet as the city said there would be, that the small businesses are having a hard time this week because the media has scared people off from coming downtown, that the bike race is a bust.

What surprises me most about these negative comments are that some of them are coming from people I wouldn't have expected it from. Come on, people, the actual races haven't even begun. So far, it's just been time trials.

Can we give this thing a chance before we whine and complain?

It was gratifying to hear someone else as excited about the race and all the international visitors as I am. I saw that the Australian racing team had stopped at Lamplighter for espressos, chatting with locals as they sat outside. Another Jackson Ward friend said that in walking eight blocks, she'd heard eight languages spoken along Broad Street. It's all exciting to me.

Probably hoping to draw in some of those visitors, Firehouse Theater is doing a Firehouse Fringe Festival all week, so after another listen to "1989," that's where I headed.

Tonight's offering was a monologue-based short work by Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard called "The War in Heaven" starring John Porter with Drew Perkins providing the music and directed by Joel Bassin.

It was Joel who gathered the small but mighty crowd together in the lobby to give us some background on Chaikin and the play. After a stroke and partial aphasia, Shepard wrote the play for him to perform.

Warning us that it was not a traditional play (well, it wouldn't be fringe if it were, now would it?), we were led into the theater.

The stage was strewn with straw, Porter sat in a stool, barefoot and open-shirted, while Drew was at the back of the stage with multiple instruments - guitar, violin, harmonica, percussion - at the ready.

It was a meandering, disjointed monologue Porter gave, rambling at times, ranting at others, trying to deal with grief, feeling diminished, birth and death. Sometimes he'd stand and walk deliberately across the stage to a music stand and speak from there, only to return to his stool.

I have no life without your thought of me.

His character was an empty soul looking for a body, waiting for other bodies to release their souls (some don't), ruminating on becoming an angel as of day he'd been born. Perkins beautifully matched his moods with instrumental interludes and sudden bursts of percussion to punctuate some of Porter's musings.

There was a time when music surrounded me on all sides. Now, listen. Nothing. No sound but the sound of my voice. 

It was a moving meditation on life and death, told in jagged phrases with occasional anger about the need to sometimes look for an angel in the midst of hate and war and it was over before we knew it.

I only wish one of the biking teams had been there to see Richmond's fringe side.

Oh, wait, they're probably back at their hotels listening to the newest interpretation of "1989." Today was a time when music surrounded us on all sides. Now, listen.

No sound but the sound of Ryan Adams' voice. It's hard to shake it off.