He’s already written entire albums of unreleased material (including, bizarrely, a track-by-track version of The Strokes’ Is This Is); now Ryan Adams has started using YouTube as an overspill for his mega-watt creativity.

At first, most of the material he posted was self-satisfied guff like this. However, since splitting up with model/journalist girlfriend Jessica Joffe Adams’ online output has taken on a more confessional quality.

Last week he posted a video tribute to Joffe, which ended with the word “sorry” spelt out in pills (it’s since been taken down). Presumably also inspired by the break-up is new song Like Yesterday, a gorgeous, Neil Young-style lament that finds Adams conveying an up-close emotional intimacy that too often gets drowned out by the motormouth quotes and wise-ass clowning.

Will the song get an official release? Hard to say. It’s tempting to speculate that, with Adams in sorrowful mood, his next album might be a stripped-down, acoustic, heartbreak record – in which case Like Yesterday would be a worthy inclusion. Let’s be honest, though: he’s just as likely to confound us all with an avant-punk flugelhorn odyssey. Just because he can.