Lyric of the day: Ryan Adams' `September'

Ryan Adams' "Jacksonville City Nights" is a quiet, understated alt-country record that illustrates the gulf between the alt-country/Americana/No Depression movement and much of the the mass-market, pop-country Nashville is producing right now.

Adams' record, recorded with the Cardinals, is intelligent, the song-writing personal, honest. "City Nights" was not done to sell a million copies. It's too good.

"September" is a short story, told with the accompaniement of an acoustic guitar, of a woman receiving a disease-related death sentence from her doctor.

"Laura lays on the foot of the bed
Mimics a noose with a telephone cord
Doctor's on the phone
Then she hangs up and says
`I ain't never gonna see the winter again'
And I don't know how, but she smiles
September, September
September, September

"They carved your name into the stone and then
they put it in the ground,
I run my fingers through the grooves
When no one's around
Drink till I am sick and
Then I talk to myself in the dog days of the summer
Then I feel you coming but I don't know how
September, September
September, September"