It won't bug me. I like an alternate perspective! And I'll just go ahead and state for the record that I am a Jeff Tweedy fan first and foremost and I think it is his band. I'm sympathetic to those who feel Bennett was the one who truly made the band special (and I really like him a lot) but I don't agree with that perspective personally. I tend to like the songwriters. For instance, I'm a fan of Mick and Keith above all else in the Stones and can get a little bit annoyed with Brian Jones getting put on a pedestal above them. Like Bennett, he was great and brought so much to the table. But you need the songs or you haven't got anything. I welcome any and all perspectives on Wilco to the thread!
We’re what, still a couple of albums away? And Jay Bennett does bring songs to the table (see movie: song on cassette tape, right there on film ‘ Cars Can’t Escape.’ All Bennett). But! I try and keep out of pitting the players against each other.
A smart perspective. In Wilco, there have been so many great players over the years and they've all brought something to the table. I actually look forward to digging into the specifics with folks who are most likely more knowledgeable than myself about musicianship! Drumming for instance. I just know what I like, but it will be great to hear from others about what makes Coomer and Kotche different as players. I like them both but certainly they are very different drummers!
Oh I'm onboard with Jay and his vision, for better or worse. Regarding your later post (and at the risk of spreading more Beatles into this poor, innocent topic), Jay and Jeff were very much like Lennon/ McCartney... except the story picked up in '68 or so and ran from there.
I was reading Stirratt's liner notes to the recent A.M. reissue, and he says that people sometimes forget that Jay and Jeff were in bands for 1o years by the last year of Uncle Tupelo.
Speaking of John Stirratt (and earlier, Michelle Shocked and Max Johnston being siblings), his twin sister is Laurie Stirratt, bassist for Blue Mountain. They were both in The Hilltops together (with Laurie on bass). And The Hilltops toured with Uncle Tupelo. Here’s an excellent piece: The Hilltops
100% agree PW. From my understanding Jeff has had on board a keyboardist from Being There and never seen him on keys (but he may compose that way). Have yet to read the book to understand his writing process, so if anyone has any insights on this I would love to know. So in the case Jeff doesn’t play keys, Jay would have come up with the keys in The Lonely One, Misunderstood, We’re Just Friends, My Darling, Pieholden Suite. Not trying to jump ahead here but that would be a major consideration in Wilco’s giant leap from A.M. to Being There ? And I 100% believe Jeff matured as a songwriter in leaps and bounds for many years to come. Can someone clarify?
From Greg Kot’s book ‘Wilco: Learning How To Die’, o. 108: While the band was in Los Angeles.... a baby grand piano in the public radio station’s studio caught Bennett’s eye. Perhaps out of boredom, he wondered aloud what “Passenger Side” might sound like with him playing piano instead of guitar. Jeff’s response was, ‘I didn’t even know you played piano,’” Bennett says. “We gave it a shot. He played acoustic, I played piano, and I sort of faked my way through it, but it turned out beautifully. He says, Next album, you’re playing keyboards.’”
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Next up: Box Full of Letters Wilco's very first single, along with their very first music video (pretty much just a straight performance clip). It didn't chart anywhere and I have no idea if it got any kind of play on MTV but apparently it was viewed by Beavis and Butt-Head, which is a special kind of feather in the cap. While I like the lyrics of the first two songs on the album, I think 'Box Full of Letters' has the first really terrific set of lyrics on the album. The idea of splitting up material possessions at the end of a breakup is a good one for a song (a definitive statement in real terms of the separation of two lives) and Jeff fills the song with all the self-doubt and confusion that would come in such a period. "I just can't find the time to write my mind the way I want it to read." What a great line. Surely we've all felt like we're doing a bad job of explaining or even understanding ourselves and our own thoughts and emotions. Some fans wanted to read this song as a subtle commentary on Jeff's "breakup" with Jay Farrar. He said it isn't ("Jay and I didn't share records") but I'll let all of you decide if there is anything subconscious going on here. Melodically, it is very strong with both good verses and chorus. 'Box Full of Letters' has a loping, approachable quality to it with solid drumming and guitar. It really does feel like a song for the every day kind of guy. We've all been there. Jeff's been there too. He doesn't have the answers either.
They performed "Box Full of Letters" on Conan O'Brien to promote it. Here's the performance, including a very nice solo from Jay Bennett. Jeff dressed up in a suit!
I highly recommend Jeff's book. It is one of the best musician memoirs I've ever read. I'll be quoting from it throughout the thread to get insights from Jeff on various topics. Here's a bit from him on songwriting: "Jay Bennett was a great match for me and the rest of the guys. Like everyone else in Wilco, Jay had absorbed a lot of music and could slip in and out of styles pretty effortlessly. He was also happy and willing to dig in with me to find ways to subvert classic song structures. We complemented each other well in this regard; he approached songs like an architect and I approached them like a wrecking ball. It's easy to write songs in shapes you've heard before, and there really isn't anything wrong with using prefab song shapes to pour your ideas into. If it works, it works, but it didn't always satisfy me, especially when I was trying to communicate something more damaged about myself. For a lot of the lyrics I was writing, it made more sense to me to undermine their stability and familiarity. Not to be weird just to be weird, but because I felt the lyrics more when they say atop shifting sands. Luckily, I enjoyed moving my fingers around the fretboard however long it would take to find the chords that would skew a song just enough to excite my ear, and Jay seemed to relish the math problem that the wrong chords I had come up with would represent. Sometimes he would put pen to paper to show me why a chord change shouldn't work, but only in service of showing me how cool it was to be wrong. Other times, when I'd get frustrated by my lack of theoretical training, I'd ask him to present me with chord substitutions until one would shake something loose melodically," (Tweedy, Let's Go (So We Can Get Back), 152-153).
“I got a lot of your records, In a separate stack Some things that I might like to hear, But I guess I'll give 'em back” This has always struck a chord with me. It is literally impossible for me to not sing these lyrics aloud. Note: the lyrics were changed at the record store performance. Tweedy sang “cd’s” instead of records. I’m assuming because the band was surrounded by cds, not records. So far? A perfect album. Three for three, with all songs vying for playlist status.
As much as I love Wilco in and of themselves, this song will always remind me of having been on Beavis & Butthead. (I still have this era of the show saved on VHS!). For our purposes, the characters' commentary is actually valuable and enlightening. It's one of the rare times that the duo's ire is not directed at the artist (in fact, Butthead says the video is "pretty cool") but at MTV's "alternative"-obsessed programming (Beavis leads off by saying "Wow, something's different about this...I want to watch this!" and Butthead rejoinders, "Go make some pancakes. You can watch this later, it's gonna be on like 50 times"). I was in a haze when AM came out, college youthfulness and all ... were Wilco indeed seen as alternative darlings by MTV? I have a hard time believing the "Box Full of Letters" video proper played that often, 120 Minutes types of shows notwithstanding. @Parachute Woman otherwise nails how I feel about the song. It's their first foray into a 'serious theme' and probably does contain the first compelling (emotionally, at least -- they're still not adventurous, abstract, or challenging in ways we'll later see from Tweedy) lyrics on the album. This song also has that "full" drum sound to which I alluded in my first post in this thread, so if any production folks could chime in that'd be really appreciated. To me, it's that sound that is the only distinguishing factor of AM when weighed with the rest of their catalog.
Thanks for breaking down what Beavis and Butt-Head had to say about the song! The clips of them commenting on music videos are unfortunately being lost to time. They are rarely on YouTube and the DVDs of the show cuts those parts completely from the episodes. I'm a big Mike Judge fan.
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Box full of letters This is almost like a type of signature song. We have a narrative driven song, with Tweedy's thoughtful and interesting lyrics. When I listen to this early stuff, it makes me scratch my head when I hear folks bagging the later stuff.... to me they are like cousins or something ... they seem like an aged version of this type of song. I reckon it is another good song, and sort of points us where the band is heading