Happy 200 pages, people ! And not gibberish 200 pages, either. I’ve read every single post, and I’ve been interested, enlightened and entertained at every turn. This is a fantastic collective time-consuming ride !
A perfect day to make 200! Thank you so much to everybody for all of your wonderful posts. To see a thread dedicated to a band that started in the '90s get this far (and still have a long journey to travel!) warms my heart.
Yes, I agree. There’s a song coming up that says ‘Mavis’ all over it, too. I’ll see what I think at the close of this thread but, pre-thread discussion, I’ve personally thought If All I Was Was Black was the best Tweedy project since Sky Blue Sky. It just missed out getting my 2017 album of the year award (edged out by the Old 97’s and Roger Waters).
"Side with Seeds" is a song that I did not "get" for the longest time. It was one of those songs that I sort of "listened" through to get to the songs I really liked. But a year or so ago, it sort of just "clicked" for me. It's definitely one of my favorites off of the record. A lot of these songs ("Impossible Germany"), just sort of "carry" the listener along. I find it very easy to "lose myself" in them. The guitar solo in this song is one of those. Agree with @wavethatflag, this one ends way too quickly.
Love Side With Seeds, but Impossible Germany has that Moonlight Feels Right by Starbuck vibe (that's not a compliment).
"Side With The Seeds" features one of Tweedy's best-ever lyrics, IMO. I'm less enamored with the music - oh, I like it, but don't think it's one of the better ones on the album. We have a similar arrangement to "You Are My Face", with a quieter opening section and then the more frantic middle instrumental that is reprised at the end. However, I much prefer the music to "You Are My Face" and don't really love the "rawk hero" guitar solo here. It feels so much less organic and interesting than the guitar solo on "Impossible Germany". For me, "Side With The Seeds" is special for the lyric, which is beautifully poetic and filled with rich imagery. The deep emotional connection involved in "siding" with someone is powerfully rendered here. Siding with the seeds implies being invested with somebody at their core, before their roots are even formed. Is this a song from a parent to a newborn infant? Could be, but I think it's equally applicable to finding the inner core of somebody and defending them from all future slings and arrows. It's a lovely sentiment and is beautifully presented here. I just wish I liked the music more.
Quiet/Loud/Quiet/Loud. It leans a lot on the loud instrumental passages for contrast and texture. I'm surprised that Nels didn't get a little piece of the composing credit. I don't care so much for the main melody or Jeff's strained vocal. As a song, it's not one of Tweedy's great efforts. Nels kind of saves it. I'd like the track better if there were a few more minutes of jamming at the end, actually. Lyrically, I guess this connects back to "You Are My Face" and the previous track, "Sky Blue Sky." He's been looking back on family life and a hometown that were too confining and problematic, so he had to escape, and resolve to communicate better, to change and grow. I wonder how much he was listening to Springsteen at the time. (Btw, how old was he when he had the experience of the parade cutting him off from home? Because he stayed in Belleville into his late 20's, until Uncle Tupelo broke up, I think.) Here, he describes a town where days and nights come and go, but nobody seems to dream big, nothing seems to grow but the weeds. Of course people aren't really listening to one another. The only way forward, Jeff feels, is if we recognize that we're all in this together. I'm not sure that I agree with this idea, though: "No one wins but the thieves, so why side with anything?" All right. I like the first four tracks pretty well, but I think this is the first crack in the blacktop.
Couldn't agree more with @frightwigwam above. This is another soul tune with a strained vocal from Jeff, and I don't really dig the vocal melody. I do like the instrumentation, and especially Nels' freakout, though. I've seen "Side with the Seeds" at 4/6 shows since it debuted. This one has remained in rotation on every tour since Sky Blue Sky was released. The most memorable performance I saw, I think, was in 2012 when it followed "Born Alone" in the setlist. A noise squall at the end of "Born Alone" gave way to a sustained mellotron chord, and then the drum roll to open "Side with the Seeds." I don't have much to say about this one, except it kind of adds some weight dragging down the record's midsection, to me. This and some of the subsequent tracks are kind of the spare tire to Sky Blue Sky's dad bod.
I never really made the connection to "You Are My Face" before, but I can see it now with what some of you are saying with the music shifts, the lyric subject matter, and the chorus-less structure. "Side With the Seeds" is a great song, but one I somehow take for granted. I don't think of it often or seek it out, even though it's still in regular rotation on the band's setlists and is pretty great live. Jeff really pours his heart into the vocals on this one. I do find it funny how many people are gearing up for the "cracks in the cement" coming n the second half of the album!
If you missed Joan Shelley's 2017 self-titled album, produced by Tweedy at The Loft, I recommend it. Probably my favorite album of the past decade.
I don’t know it. I’ll check it out (But it will have to go in the queue, following all the other name-dropped albums).
Thank you for your steady hand and illuminating words. In the olden daze you would be writing for Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy or Cream.
Side With The Seeds is a song that shouldn't work, at least on paper. We have the pretty traditional soulful foundation and then intense shift and then back to the basic tune and wrapping up with the guitar frenzy at the end. Sounds clunky, but it works! Lyrically, I always thought it's about our different outlooks on life and it's OK to disagree. This song to me is another example of Wilco making something truly original out of disparate influences.
My dream job! But I wouldn't want to be a music writer now. In 1972. I basically want Cameron Crowe's life.
Exactly. Your words would be wasted now as rock journalism is basically dead, unless you’re David Fricke. 1970-74 sounds about right.
Love Side with the Seeds. I’ve always thought the lyrics were about America’s political divide, especially that line about the thieves winning. Jeff talks about the negative climate in interviews from the era. Siding with the seeds or the leaves is kind of irrelevant if we’re all on the side of the trees... and then the conclusion about siding with you if you’ll side with me. It’s about people not sides. Musically I love this one too. Another soul number driven by piano and organ (5 for 5!). But then that wild guitar part. What makes this solo different is how it swirls up with the mellotron. If you didn’t already know, Pat might be a bigger mellotron fan than Jay:
By the way, this live version of Side with the Seeds was released in June. It is on Spotify, Amazon Music, etc. and is labeled SongAid. Does anyone have any info on this? Charity version? For what charity? Red Cross? Google isn't helping me here. It's a really excellent live version, I can say that much. There's no info on when it was performed either.
Next: Shake It Off Jeff Tweedy: vocals, electric guitar John Stirratt: bass Glenn Kotche: drums, percussion Mikael Jorgensen: Wurlitzer Nels Cline: electric guitar Pat Sansone: electric guitar As I've mentioned, this thread is really my first time interacting with other Wilco fans extensively. I've kind of just been listening to and loving them in my own happy little bubble for years. So it came as a little bit of a surprise to me to find that 'Shake It Off' is somewhat notorious for being a hated Wilco song. Reading the entry for this song in Wilcopedia (and seeing some of the comments that have referred to it in the lead up) has been an eye opener for me. In 2011, Jeff introduced the song thusly, "This is probably the most maligned song in the entire Wilco catalogue, so if you have something you need to be doing right now, I'd recommend it." After he played it he said, "Why do you think that song is so hated? I think it's because it sounds like I'm singing while I'm whacking off. That's what what I'm saying--intent should count for something." Apparently a bunch of reviews bashed this song too. I guess ignorance is bliss. I never counted 'Shake It Off' as a favorite Wilco song, but I've certainly never hated it. The music definitely has a nagging quality to it and I can hear how the stop-start structure might annoy, but it doesn't really bother me. I think the nagging, repetitive qualities capture the lyrics of being uncomfortable in a hotel room. I think the lyrics are great. Sunlight angles on A wooden floor at dawn A ceiling fan is on Chopping up my dreams What is left of them I take to sleep again Where I dare pretend I'm more than I seem Looking at the tracklist, 'Shake It Off' is my least favorite song on Sky Blue Sky but I think it is just okay, not terrible. Some good playing from the band on here and good storytelling. I also think there are plenty more gems to come on this album, so I don't see the album as being front-loaded either. However, I do have to agree with Newsweek. Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off' is way better.
Shake It Off: as @Parachute Woman I had no idea of outside-my-own-bubble perceptions of this song. But my one word note, scribbled last week as I worked my way through the album is: obnoxious.
Mmm, the sweet smell of dissent and controversy ! I think the song is meant to rub the listener the wrong way – which is no excuse for doing so. But I've got to admit there’s a strong and evocative concept here, the man’s is struggling, resolve versus inertia, and the music is an apt expression of that idea, if not very appealing or enjoyable. What I do enjoy, though, is the meaningful (both musically and lyrically) Shake it off/Please Be Patient with Me sequence in the middle of the record, something Jeff always does very cleverly. Anyway, you’ll never hear me say anything against this song, because at the time of release, my first son (about 3&1/2 y.o then) developed a passion for it. So I burned it on a CD-r with a few other songs he liked (his number 1 obsession being Harrison’s Got My Mind Set on You) and he listened to it constantly for the next 2 years. His life at the time was watching the Pixar movie Cars twice a day, then listening to that CD-r on repeat. Does it make Shake it Off dad rock or kid’s music, I'll leave it to you to decide… But I sure wonder what Jeff Tweedy would think of that : the deliberately unsettling "most maligned song in the whole Wilco catalogue" being labelled kid's music…
This is my feeling. In fact, it's got a cool feeling - that guitar section between the mellow sections and the shake-it-off shake-it-off chorus is quite heavy and interesting. It's not at the level of what's come before, but I like hearing it.
