Porque tras tres discos ha sabido reinventarse. Porque es una de los mejores artistas de folk/cantautor al estilo Bruce Springsteen en Nebraska. Porque no se le puede comparar con otros tan comerciales como Jack Johnson.

A quien se le podía ocurrir nada más y nada menos que hacer un álbum sobre distintas épocas históricas y narrar en cada canción un acontecimiento enmarcado en distintos hechos históricos. Uno de ellos es The Temptation of Adam que narra nada más y nada menos que la historia de dos soldados (Adam y Marie) que están en un silo de misiles nucleares. Y ahí es donde Adam tiene la tentación de apretar el botón rojo para quedarse con su compañera Marie, provocando una guerra. Para entender bien la canción mejor ver el vídeo mientras se lee la letra.

Por algo The historical conquests of Josh Ritter es uno de los mejores discos del 2007. Hasta los de la mondosonoro lo dicen, que bien les cuesta si no es un modernillo de estos que se llevan ahora.

Josh Ritter - The Temptation of Adam

Y la letra:

“If this was the cold war we could keep each other warm,” I said
On the first occasion that I met Marie
We were crawling through the hatch that was
The missle silo door
And I don’t think that she really thought that much of me
I never had to learn to love her
Like I learned to love the bomb
She just came along and started to ignore me
But as we waited for the big one
I started singing her my songs
And I think she started feeling something for me

We passed the time with crosswords
That she thought to bring inside
“What five letters spell apocalypse?” she asked me
I wondered over saying WWIII
She smiled and we both knew that she misjudged me
Oh Marie it was so easy to fall in love with you
It felt almost like a home of sorts or something
And you would keep the warhead missle silo good as new
And I’d watch you with my thumb above the button

Then one night you found me in my army issue cott
You told me of your flash of inspiration
You said “Fusion was the broken heart that’s lonely’s only thought”
And all night long you drove me wild with your equations
Oh Marie do you remember all the time we used to take
We’d make our love then ramsack the rations
I think of you leaving now in the avalanche cascades
My eyes get washed away in chain reactions

Oh Marie if you would stay we could stick pins in the map
Of all the places you thought that love would be found
But I would only need one pin to show where my love is at
In a top secret location 300 feet under the ground

We could hold each other close
We’d stay up every night
Look up into the dark and pretend it’s the night sky
Pretend this giant missle is a old oak tree instead
And I’d carve your name in hearts into the warhead
Oh Marie something tells me things just won’t
Work out above
That our love would live a half-life on the surface
So at night while you are sleeping
I hold you closer just because
As our time grows short I grow a little nervous

So I think about the big one
WWIII
Would we ever really care the world had ended?
You could hold me here forever
Like you’re holding me tonight
I think about that big red button and I’m tempted