Hell is Love
by Lauren Leonard
This article originally appeared in RQ Vol. 1 // Issue Two: MONSTERS, Fall 2019. Purchase a copy and subscribe to the magazine here.
Writer Lauren Leonard has selected The Bearded Ladies Cabaret to receive a portion of single issue sales of the magazine in which this story first appeared. Root Quarterly will donate 20% of the proceeds from the copies of Vol. 1 // Issue Two: MONSTERS that sell between November 14th, 2020 and December 14th, 2020.
When I was young, I spent a lot of time on the swing set listening to cassette tapes of New Kids on the Block (NKOTB, to the initiated). I kept my eyes glued to where the driveway met the horizon, watching for Jonathan, Jordan, Donnie, Danny, and, most importantly, Joey to appear and dance their way in choreographed unison toward me. To swing with me. To sing with me. (To save me?) They never came, but so began my love affair with boys in bands.
As a teen, the music got harder, the boys edgier. They wore combat boots and tight, pleather pants. They were tattooed with pierced eyebrows and coal-rimmed eyelids. They smoked. They drank. They did drugs. Their songs were sad and loud and made very little lyrical sense. They did not dance in unison.
In high school, by virtue of one friend’s spectacular breasts and that teenage brand of naive confidence, my girl gang and I saw a lot of shows and obsessed over a lot of boys in bands. We elbowed our way into front rows and camped out on festival lawns subsisting on sugar and Natty Light and heeding nature’s call behind the nearest tree. We rode all over God’s Country in cars where bodies far outnumbered seatbelts. We snuck out. We made out. Miraculously, save one poorly timed pregnancy, we managed to make it out and grow up.
In retrospect, I see how problematic (dangerous) this all was—and to think we were the “good kids….” We were nascent negotiators trying to play the game of power dynamics without a comprehensive understanding of the rules. We were simply out to have a good time. In hindsight, I realize that none of it was ever really about the boys in the bands, but about us. The boys were simply bit players providing the musical soundtrack to our formative, adolescent years.
As an adult, my musical preferences still trend mostly white and male, and while some wear (real) leather and have arms covered with scars and faded sailor girls, I prefer reserved seating in close proximity to a bar serving craft beer and a bathroom with functioning plumbing and hand soap. Now it’s the music that matters, more specifically, the lyrics. It’s the well-drawn story that captures my heart and brings me back time and time again. Today the boys in bands are Petty, Joel, Duritz, Springsteen, and, looming largest, Adams.
Ryan Adams is a prolific singer-songwriter. His words play in between a burning desire to say everything and the need to fold himself away like a card table. He perfectly paints the picture of the sad sap in the bar who can’t find love, and the former lover who fucked all your friends and then, perhaps more devastatingly, stole your record collection. He captures exquisitely the fraught relationships we have with the people and places we call home; crippling anxiety and depression; the terror and the possibility of loving another human being; and the freedom of letting it all go.
As renowned as his musical prowess is Adams’ mercurial temperament. Since the ’90s, he’s been smashing guitars, alienating industry bigwigs and audiences—do NOT request songs by Bryan Adams at a Ryan Adams show—ghosting on collaborators, and shit-talking fellow musicians (see Ryan Adams v. Jack White; Ryan Adams v. Father John Misty; Ryan Adams v. The Strokes). His public life has been a merry-go-round of acclaim and apology.
One recent round was the airing of dirty divorce laundry between him and singer and actress Mandy Moore. After Moore called their six-year relationship “very unhealthy” in a Glamour profile, Adams told Twitter that he didn’t even remember their wedding. He subsequently apologized, wished happiness for all involved, and encouraged anyone suffering from depression and anxiety to seek help (and get cats).
Then, last winter The New York Times published a report adding Adams to the long and growing list of men felled by the #MeToo movement. The article detailed accounts of women Adams wooed with promises of industry access they might not otherwise, regardless of talent, have. But when the relationships fizzled and his personal advances were denied, so too were their careers. The most serious accusation Adams faces is that of engaging in sexually explicit communication with a young woman who, in some states, at 16, would be a minor. As rocks are hurled and skeletons drug out, I am happy to fall on the elder end of the millennial spectrum where attention-seeking shenanigans took place in real life and resulted, at worst, in a rumor that followed you around school for a few days.
Just before the report was issued, Adams took to Twitter to say the truth was on his side and that he’d take down The New York Times. Following the article’s release, his tone shifted and he resolved to work to be “the best man” he could be.
Adams was granted no such opportunity.
Immediately following the report, the release of his forthcoming album was put on hold indefinitely and the tour scrapped. Radio stopped playing his songs and he lost his sponsors. His social media—mostly cats and music equipment—went dark.
I groaned when this news hit my feed because, as a staunch supporter of the #MeToo movement, I knew I’d have to reconcile my ardent feminism with my affinity for Adams. And considering the burgeoning culture of cancellation, I knew I’d have to do so quickly.
I can reckon with Ryan Adams’ alleged indiscretions by making a clear distinction between the man and the body of work he has created. In line with the definition of art, I am invested in Adams’ application of imagination and skill to the writing of fictional stories that are, when set to music, beautiful and emotionally powerful.
As I write this, Philadelphia is celebrating the 200th birthday of Walt Whitman. I am heartened to see that it is the artists commissioned to honor America’s Poet asking the tough questions about through which lens we should view him. Whitman’s poetry gave voice to many a future artist struggling with identity and searching for a safe place to be themselves. His poetry speaks of freedom and equality, though Whitman, like many in his day, was a pragmatic abolitionist focused on healing a divided nation, not equality of the races.
The audience at a Bearded Ladies Cabaret show celebrating/burying Whitman was asked to participate in the possible cancellation of other problematic artists. Should R. Kelly be cancelled? Unanimous applause. Michael Jackson? Lots of furrowed brows and noncommittal grumbling. Joni Mitchell? Lots of confusion. (Joni Mitchell attended a Halloween party in 1976 in blackface as a character she called “Art Nouveau.” Art appeared on the cover of 1977’s Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter.) The cancelling continued until no hero, no character—including Peter Pan and the cast—was left standing.
Being asked to seal an artist’s fate on demand by show of applause was uncomfortable. The scene that played out was frenzied. Hysterical. Ridiculous. That’s because this notion of cultural cancellation is itself ridiculous. It is too simplistic, too easy; a swipe-left reaction perfectly fit for our rage culture. It is a win for corporate censorship and it is dangerous.
What we’re really cancelling when we blanketly and spontaneously disappear art is critical thought and argument. We cancel reflection and hindsight and elevation and evolution. We cancel nuance and historical context. We cancel conversation. We cancel choice.
I choose not to cancel Ryan Adams.
In the way of Whitman and Jackson and Mitchell and so many others, he has given me beautiful, emotionally powerful things. Also in the way of Whitman, Jackson, Mitchell, and others, he has forced me to reflect on things. For instance, why are most of my literary heroes straight, white men? And how do I speak candidly about the way women knowingly use sex to get what they want without having to forfeit my feminist card and be accused of victim-blaming?
As the investigation plays out, it may be revealed that Ryan Adams is a criminal and a kind of monster, but for now, I choose to keep the sad saps, the record thieves, and the fraught relationships. I choose to let this art be the soundtrack of my current years.
This article originally appeared in RQ Vol. 1 // Issue Two: MONSTERS, Fall 2019. Purchase a copy and subscribe to the magazine here.
Writer Lauren Leonard has selected The Bearded Ladies Cabaret to receive a portion of single issue sales of the magazine in which this story first appeared. Root Quarterly will donate 20% of the proceeds from the copies of Vol. 1 // Issue Two: MONSTERS that sell between November 14th, 2020 and December 14th, 2020.
Lauren Earline Leonard is an associate editor of RQ. She is a Philadelphia-based writer, director, and producer who founded Earlie Bird Productions in 2017. With EBP she co-wrote and directed V2: Creation Myth (February 2018) and Mother/Daughter (September 2018). Her original work, DREDx, premiered in 2019. Leonard holds a B.A. in theatre from Temple University.