Get Some Apocalyptic Romance with Ryan Adams’s ‘Kimmel’ Performance of “Doomsday”

“Those things are karmic and I handle them carefully,” Ryan Adams told Noisey of writing through his much-publicized divorce from Mandy Moore. “Feeling things and making art are very different. It’s hard to explain unconscious automatic writing. Imagine there’s a train station: the train comes in; the information gets off. I let information arrive in my mind. When I’m playing guitar it’ll travel.” When we spoke to him in February, he was trying to resist any simple reading of his latest album, Prisoner; he didn’t just want it to be His Breakup Record.

Thankfully, Prisoner was a strong record and its exposed roots spread out far enough to divert our attention from the seeds. So, during his performance of “Doomsday” on last night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, it’s easy to follow his heartsickness when he sings, “My love, you said you’d love me now ’til doomsday comes.” Watch the full performance above.

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