There’s a really distinct piano sound across the whole album. Hard to describe but it’s eq’d in an unflattering but effective way. I assumed that was a Jay flourish, but in comparing the Engineer mix to the final mix, a lot of what I assumed was Jay was added in this later phase... piano, b-bender guitar, feedback guitar, mellotron, Wurlitzer, percussion, tambourine, octave harmony, snare rolls. Not to say Jay wasn’t involved in any of these overdubs, but certainly a lot happened under Jim’s eye. So again, the story of “Jim removed layers” doesn’t fit unless the process went: demos>recording>engineer mix>overdubs>unreleased Jay mix>Jim mix. There’s way more going on in the final mix than in the engineer mix.
Critics respect them more than some contemporaries that built up a larger following, which helps, and the museum inducted the British Wilco last year, so that's also encouraging.
I suspect this is correct. Kot book: (Tweedy) saw that Bennett was burning out on the project, and so was he. The arrangements were dense, dizzying, and daunting, like nothing Wilco had attempted before, but Tweedy realized that the songs were getting lost in the production. He asked O’Rourke to take a crack at ‘I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,’ and it took O’Rourke three days to wade through the noise to find the backbone of a song, to crack its code, but the results blew away everyone in the band. Even Bennett was impressed. “It was a freaky, f’d up song, and he made sense out of it,” he says. “He did a good job.” —-skip— “Contrary to popular perception, O’Rourke didn’t bring out the noisier elements in Foxtrot; instead, he stripped away much of the abrasiveness to bring out the melodies underneath and heighten the drama.” —skip— O’Rourke got the go-ahead to mix the rest of the album...”I took away 80 percent of the noise on the record, which is the reverse of what people expect of me,” O’Rourke says. —-skip— “...He added keyboards, guitar parts, and even pedal steel guitar to various tracks, with Tweedy’s blessing. He also suggested a radical restructuring of ‘Poor Places,’ flipping the original verse and chorus and having Tweedy redo his vocal. Midway through the sing, Wilco morphs into Loose Fur, with only Tweedy, Kotche and O’Rourke playing on the track. Tweedy was initially upset about rewiring one of his songs but soon saw the merits of the new version. Stirratt wasn’t tickled about the revamp, but he understood the motivation. The song had been the sole master Jeff Tweedy has served faithfully through his entire career, and that wasn’t going to change now.” p. 197-199
“Pot Kettle Black”- The opening riff is really close to The Cure, but when Jeff starts singing it becomes a much different song. I love The Cure! They were pretty much my first musical obsession and I still think they are one of the best bands of all time. I’m pretty sure Jeff is aware that the guitar is very similar to “In Between Days”. Does anyone know if this has ever come up in an interview? A great song as we reach the final three masterpieces on this album. 4.5/5
Doing the math (original releases only). A.M.-Bennett era. 71 songs (not counting Bragg songs); 4.7 hours of music (loosely figuring 24 minutes x two Mermaid albums). After Jay: 81 songs; 4.9 hours of music. Doesn’t include Moon EP (Camera and Magazine would be Jayers. Handshake Drugs? Not sure. Other three? I think After Jay? But not sure.) All in all, close to the same output.
Good stuff! I'll be damned, I always thought O'Rourke influenced them to add the noise and extra sounds. On Pot Kettle Black I do hear the Cure but also, dare I say, Smashing Pumpkins. This is an amazing thread folks. Thank you all.
Yeah, just my little joke. The Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, like any Hall of Fame, is just a museum, really. A place where one might go to look at artifacts and maybe learn a little something; but, if I never get to Cleveland, what does it really matter to me whether all of my favorites are represented, or whatever exhibits they have on display? It helps me to keep some perspective on what it means, or how much I should really care about it, when I remember that.
Being an Ohioan I have been to the RR Hall of Fame in Cleveburg. It’s fun, the Great Lakes science museum is right next door and there is lots of beer and food in the neighborhood (pre- COVID-19) As for Wilco, I’m not sure Jeff and gang would care either way on the vote ...
It probably would mean more to his family. The son who wanted to impress the women in the diner by bragging about Wilco's Grammy, he'd be thrilled. And if Wilco gets inducted one day, I'll be happy for them and the Wilco fans who go to Cleveland and see Jeff's guitars and Jay's fur coat or something. If they had the paperwork releasing Wilco from their Reprise contract, that would be cool.
I don't believe you even have to be officially inducted to have items put on display in the museum portion of the Hall of Fame. Part of me would like to see them get in simply because they deserve it, even if the hall is something of a farce. It is nice just to have a moment to thank and pay tribute to artists and what they contributed to music history. And sometimes the induction ceremonies have good performances that bring together old faces (like Bill Berry drumming with R.E.M. again at their induction--that was magical). Poor Places My favorite song on this album and another one of those all-timer top five favorite Wilco songs for me. I feel that this is extraordinary art. And it is a song that is 100% about the journey. The arrangement is so patient. The first four verses are undercut with the fuzzy swells of distortion--just a bed of soft sound on which Jeff's gentle voice floats and glides. A bit of piano is buried in there but it is distant and so far away. Finally, at 'Someone ties a bow / In my backyard to show me love' things clarify a bit. The drums enter. The distortion clears. The piano leads. It is building and it is beautiful. And then it changes again-- 'It makes no difference to me!" You know how sometimes music is just so incredibly satisfying to listen to? As you listen, your breath catches at every arrangement decision they made. It just sounds perfect. That's 'Poor Places' for me. And then, after the climax, we fade back out with piano trills, the re-entrance of the fuzzy distortion and that spooky, eternal repetition of the radio...yankee. hotel. foxtrot. yankee. hotel. foxtrot. yankee. hotel. foxtrot. So much of this album is about communication and trying to get through to someone and I feel that this section is a perfect distillation of that theme--the sounds of the radio crying out across vast distances, but the words are gibberish, the meaning lost in translation, the voice inhuman and stripped of any real emotion. The lyrics are magnificent. I interpret them to be about how flawed we all are. The repeating 'his jaw's been broken' I feel reflects on the suffering we have all gone through and a broken jaw would also impede communication (bringing back that theme). This verse: There's Bourbon on the breath Of the singer you love so much He takes all his words from the books That you don't read anyway This feels like a comment on how all of our heroes (musical and otherwise) are flawed and imperfect just like we are and the words you love so much that he wrote? He may have gotten them from somewhere else. (This reminds me of Bob Dylan and "Love and Theft" by the way...maybe my favorite Bob Dylan album and one on which he 'borrowed' from quite a few sources). And what are the poor places? He ends the song by saying "he's not going outside" despite how hot it is inside the poor places. I feel like that's a representation of the pain and discomfort of an internal world marred by depression, anxiety, all of that. He's uncomfortable in the poor places, but he's not leaving just yet. I could listen to this song forever. Jeff and Jay...bravo, guys. This is superb.
Poor Places is another wonderful song. If YHF could be summed up in one word, it would be atmosphere. YHF is so evocative. Even after all these years, it is such a listening pleasure. I too figured that O'Rourke was responsible for the sonics and added layer upon layer of sound. Never for the life of me, would I have thought that he tried to simplify the record and make it less abrasive if you will. It worked. I'm glad he was involved.
Poor Places is brilliant. The droning start with the vulnerable vocals are such a good start. Then the piano, and that incredible buildup. The overall result is simply stunning. Yankee. Hotel. Foxtrot. Wow! It will forever belong with Reservations to me; I can't hear one without the other. This pair of songs was played the first performance I ever saw Wilco and I'm sure contributed to my becoming a fan. Another time I saw them play Poor Places>Art of Almost, and while I think Art of Almost is a great song, this pairing was missing something.
Poor Places: this is one song that we do know, thanks to Greg Kot, that Jim O’Rourke played an important role in shaping the song and is also actually playing an (unidentified) instrument. He flipped the verse and chorus...meaning what? That originally it started with “it makes no difference to me”? I’m not sure. It’s hard to imagine the song any other way now. The poor places/overseas. It makes no difference to me? I don’t quite get the connection between the verses and the proclaimed (but I don’t think real, simply because of the vocal delivery that appears to express distress) indifference to the poor places. I asked my wife to weigh in on the Selection of the Final Song (from YHF) for my playlist. This was my choice and she agreed (while I kept studiously poker faced). Jay plays: noiz section (egg beater guitar/Morse code loop), Wurlitzer, acoustic guitars, nylon string guitars, piano loops and guitar hell at end of song.
One of my favorite day trips I ever did was when me and my then 3 year old son drove out to Cleveland from Chicago to go to the RR HOF -- in order to entice him more, I told him that I was going to take him to the Great Lake Science Museum, too (a great place to visit). I went to the RR HOF to see the Grateful Dead exhibit - which was great. Anyway Wilco was represented there at the time - in the Midwest exhibit.
Sounds like a truck backing up at the beginning, with those rattling percussive sounds. A really effective swell of somewhat undefined sound underneath sets a platform for Tweedy to sing over... and there is a sort of semi ominous swell, before we burst into the piano. I like the melody on the instrument in the background (on my phone, I can't pick it) Then we move into acoustic guitar. I enjoy the changing environments. Then we get a cool instrumental break with a cool piano arpeggio, and a thumping pulse. This is probably the closest listen I have had to this. I like the static coming in to overwhelm everything. There is someone talking .... ahhh, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. A nice blaze of sound to tear us out of the song. This is an interesting lyric. The reference to the father, and then the singer seems to be pointing towards an heredity issue, and my fangs have been pulled could be a reference to being pacified.... I get the impression that this is an addict locking themselves away, but struggling with a need to escape, but "I'm not going outside" is emphasized twice. I really want to see you tonight is the repeat thought, but I am not going outside. There is a certain kind of futility ... the singer is intoxicated, and he is singing about things that you know nothing about, because you don't read the books, so his jaw may as well be broken... and it can't heal because the bandage is too tight... but my fangs are gone so I am not dangerous, I'd like to see you, but I am not going outside. I appreciate the bow in the garden to express love, but I'm still not coming out. Sorry random thoughts. I like this, and with the lyrics pointing somewhat where I think they do, the turbulence of the mind makes sense on the outro, the contradictory thoughts and concerns create a white sound inside the head, and some voice speaking code builds and builds until my head explodes.... Is this about his migraines? I don't know, sorry just thinking aloud. I like the song a lot
I always thought the "he takes all the words from the books that you don't read" line was a self-reference to his own lifting of Topic of Cancer prose for "Ashes of American Flags." In any case, a great song. It was the very last one they rolled out from the album in the live setting, as "Poor Places" didn't debut until fall of 2002, a full year after most of the songs were in heavy rotation. With all the arrangement changes and production work, I don't think this song was easy to learn live — especially when they were just a four piece!
This is the song (like they say “this is the girl” in Mulholland Drive). On any given Wilco album (so far), there’s one song that gives a hint of what the next one will explore. Poor Places is that song on YHF. The one that opens the door to A Ghost Is Born, with its drones soundscape (at first it sounds like Scottish pipes, but then it’s a bed of guitars, oh no, wait a minute, it was distorted synths after all… or was it ?), its chaotic ending and its brooding but sublime melodies. But it’s also one of the most unique pieces in the catalogue, if only because of the shortage of guitars. According to @Zeki's quoting of Kot’s book, it is also the song with the most crucial Jim O’Rourke input, which makes perfect sense. One listen to the track on the “demo” (not “engineer”) collection shows there has been almost as much “restructuration” (and not “destructuration”!) done on this than from Corduroy Cut Off Girl to Radio Cure. It started as a pop song with a great chorus, and became this otherworldly lament, a dreamstate whisper of a song, with some of the most beautiful keyboards chordings and sounds ever to grace a Wilco song. We get everything, Wurlitzer with a slight 70’s feel, piano with or without reverb, arpeggios, loops, some reminding us of Misunderstood, some of We’re Just Friends or even Jesus etc. All the while, the song develops and builds as it moves along, like a sea chantey gone wild. The masterstroke is the “and it made no difference to me” bridge. It was the chorus on the “demo”, it was still a recurring part in the engineer demo, it becomes a little island of melodic and harmonic bliss, 30 seconds of musical grace occupying precisely the middle of the running time (from 2’30’´ to 3’00’´), before being ad-libbed and gradually submerged by the building noise of the end. It’s more or less the same trick as in Radio Cure, but even more effective, because the melody is even more extraordinary, and the melodrama of the song is more in your face. Those thirty seconds of genius may be my favorite thirty seconds of Wilco music ever, with Jeff lost in the middle of an overwhelming multipart prog song, but emerging almost solo on his acoustic guitar and still managing to make his double-tracked voice heard, from afar, like a ghostly aching troubadour.
Great, well-written observations here. Those 30 seconds make the song. They serve as a link between the the buildup of the first couple minutes and the noise buildup of the final minute-plus. Almost like a “moment of clarity” in an otherwise confusing mental state.
