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You’re going to quickly realize that I find it hard to be objective. Really hard. Above all, I judge things based on my emotional connection to them. In college we're taught to analyze and deconstruct and it's nice to know how to do those things, but I really would rather not do it with things outside of school, things I actually like.

I could probably call this the Elizabethtown Argument. Because even though I completely agree that the eponymous movie is structurally bad and pretty poorly written, I love it. And I find it extremely hard to describe why. I love the idea of spreading one’s father’s ashes across the country, I love the wedding party, I love "Free Bird" under the fire sprinklers, and I love the copious use of Ryan Adams ("Come Pick Me Up," "Words," and "English Girls Approximately"). The only thing I can't excuse is Susan Sarandon tap-dancing. Someone defend that. Please.

Anyway. I wanted to blog about how much I love the Ryan Adams & The Cardinals song "Beautiful Sorta." And since I've just explained the impossibility of being objective, I'll just go with gut reactions. So please, bear with me.

I first heard the song last summer, disc 1 track 5 of their album Cold Roses. I rolled my eyes at the intro, in which Ryan mumbles, "When I say L-U-V, you better believe me L-U-V, gimme a beer." And yeah, it was a stomp-rock ruckus but nothing too out of the ordinary. Just a song I knew and minded.

Then came the seminal Charlottesville concert that changed my life last September, and "Beautiful Sorta" came late in the set as a more bluesy slow number. This was fun, especially when Jon Graboff came out from behind the pedal-steel guitar to sing the second verse, before quietly returning after he was finished.

Then the Seattle concert from this past January came into circulation on the Live Music Archive (http://www.archive.org) and of course I had to grab it. Not only did The Cards bust out cobwebbed classics like "Wonderwall" and "Come Pick Me Up," but also a 15-minute, feedback-heavy, spaced-out psychedelic "Easy Plateau." So I was listening to the show and "Beautiful Sorta" came out of left field and walloped me over and over during its three-minute running time. I thought I knew the song. Fun rock. But this version was out of this world.

At this point I will attempt to provide a play-by-play analysis of a song that has slowly crept into my top-played list on iTunes.

We start off with a fierce, fierce, fierce drum intro by the one and only Brad Pemberton. At this point I’ve heard eleven different versions of “Beautiful Sorta,” all of which started with the bass line by Chris Feinstein. Here, the drums immediately grab your attention and throw you into a journey of pulse-pounding rock.

Then the main riff shifts into gear and Ryan's vocals hit, mixing the traditional rock-n-roll line of "All I want to do is get up" with a healthy dose of death in the mix ("and not want to die"). It’s one of Ryan’s trademarks to mix a catchy riff with depressing lyrics, and he doesn’t disappoint here.

I love how Graboff's pedal-steel casts a blanket over the wonderful lyrics "Walkin' through the starfield covered in lights." It's one of my favorite instruments and its part in the song is perfect.

And, as the title of the blog suggests, I love how Ryan's inflection turns "Sorta" into "Soda." See also: his song "I See Monsters" usually becomes "Icy Monsters."

As the second verse curls around, I love the similes "buzzin' like a jar full of lightning bugs" and "wasted like a bum with somebody's wallet," and I love how backup vocalist Neal Casal complements Ryan perfectly on them. The line “pictures inside of you and me/no, you and I” initially confused me. Thinking, Ryan couldn't possibly be improperly correcting his grammar, right? Well, right. As he wrote in a post on some message board years ago, he said that he was always called out about his bad grammar by a former girlfriend. So, to rub it in the hypothetical girl's face, he corrects it for her, but does so incorrectly. Clever! And when his voice rises for the ending "So far past sad I'm crazy, I'm sorry!" I get chills.

The bridge! I've found that Ryan usually throws something different in here. One of my favorites is the October show in Columbus, where after "look at all the things that we started" he throws in an "Awwww snap!" followed by a little "rruph" on guitar. Here, after the repeated "beautiful sorta but not" he makes a sound not unlike a 9-year-old sneezing into his hand in front of a girl just to gross her out.

And then the song rollicks into its closing chorus, Brad's cymbals at full clang and the guitars carrying me into perfect happiness as Ryan's voice wails the final "Beautiful sorta but nooooooooooooot!!"

My pulse returns to its normal rate. I take a breath. I smile.

I like music.