Wilco: Album by Album

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Parachute Woman, May 11, 2020.

  1. awsop

    awsop Forum Resident

    Location:
    Netherlands
    Jeff's is a melodic giant. However, a very small number of his songs don't get me melodically . This is one of them. It sounds flat to me.
    It seems like the verses and chorusses flowing quietly into each other. So it sounds like an endless repitition.
    In @Fortuleo's twin song Don't Forget, which I do like, there's more depth and the chorusses are more contrasting the verses.
     
  2. rancher

    rancher Unmade Bed

    Location:
    Ohio
    I know What It's Like - this is a good one, more up my alley than the last one (sorry, did not log on this weekend and missed the comments, trying to catch up here!)
     
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  3. fredyidas

    fredyidas Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    For me, I Know What It’s Like is the centerpiece of WARM. These lyrics cut me to the core. In fact, a lot of times I can’t listen to this song without crying. I really connect with these lyrics about being an outsider, not being loved, wanting to numb yourself, and starting over. This song connects with me more than just about anything that Jeff has ever written. It’s beautiful to me that Jeff is reaching out to us, his listeners, in this empathetic way. When you share your pain with others it can lessen the burden, and for me that is what Jeff is doing here. And though I’m in a much better place now, and so is Jeff, it can be painful to remember the not-so-good times.

    My shadow stays, even when I’m miles away, waiting outside – if you’ve ever been depressed, you know how you can feel OK for a while, but you know that darkness is still hanging around waiting to rejoin you. I imagine this applies to addiction too.

    When the lights are dim, in the window I have a twin, I’m always looking out, and he’s always looking in – this can be read several ways. You could say the image outside is Jeff’s old self, addicted and cut off from his family and love, and current happier family man Jeff is remembering what it was like on the outside. Or you could relate it to what I said about the shadow lurking and that that person is always threatening to return. Or it could be that one half of Jeff looks out to the world and others for connection while the other half looks inward, which might cut him off from others. It’s a powerful image.

    I know it’s a lie, when you say it’s okay - devastating

    As far as the music, I love the jangly 12 string guitar.
     
  4. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    "I Know What I Like"- It's a pleasant song, but do I love it? I'm mixed on that answer. It does sound like a Wilco track and I agree it harkens back to A.M. era Jeff. It's certainly an ear worm and gets the toes tapping. There just isn't anything about it that makes it more than an average Tweedy song. That is not a knock on Jeff or the song, but a testament to how good of a songwriter he is. When this comes up as an average song, you know you are listening to one of the finest songwriters of his generation. This song also has the potential to deepen its hooks in me. For now I will say 3.5/5 but that could go up by the time we wrap up this album.
     
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  5. robcar

    robcar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    Man, does Tweedy sound like Ryan Adams on this or what? This feels like something that could be on one of his albums. I'm always a sucker for Byrdsian jangles, and Jeff delivers in spades here. "I Know What It's Like" is very good both musically and lyrically and definitely calls to mind "I Must Be High" and a few others from the first Wilco album. Very good song that just falls short of hitting the bullseye for me. I'll have to think about the lyrics some more - there's a lot going on in there.
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2020
  6. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Let's get this party started... with some more downbeat country rock! :wiggle:

    I'd say that this is an improved take on "Everybody Hurts." Jeff's comment: "I just didn’t know of another song that used that phrase ("I know what it's like"). It seems almost too obvious, but it’s exactly what I want to say to people who are going through something. At the same time, it’s testing the limits of empathy—nobody really ever knows what somebody else is going through." Tweedy will love you, baby. But he also knows his limits.

    There are a lot of nice turns of phrase and imagery in here, and I relate to the lyrics very well. I think there are some indications that Jeff might be on the autism spectrum, or at least he relates to that perspective very well, too. But I just wish that I got more out of the music. It is sort of anodyne Tweedy. The quiet flow and sense of endless repetition might suit some of the lines--like "I know what it's like to not feel love/pain," "I know what it's like to keep losing your place" and "I know what it's like starting over again"--but it also dampens the impact of the song on me.
     
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  7. jalexander

    jalexander Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    I Know What It’s Like is great. The music is a bit generic, but the overdubbed lead guitar gives it that modern, dissonant sound that is Tweedy’s signature. Where it excels is in the lyric. Just a beautiful piece of human empathy.

    Tweedy has talked about how he tries to get out of the way of lyrics, letting them reveal themselves out of initial mumbling. In this case I think it’s one if letting the music get out of the way of the lyric. The vocal delivery is perfect as well, sounding as if Jeff could break into tears at any moment. Wonderful vulnerability.
     
  8. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Now listening to "Misunderstood" from the '99 Boulder show in the Summerteeth Deluxe. Devastating as always. And I'm struck by the difference in showing and telling you that he knows what it's like. I guess today's Warm song is more like a reflection, looking back with some feeling of maturity, from some distance. "Misunderstood" is reflective, but still raw. He's really going through it. And it never fails to get through to me.
     
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  9. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    This is a simply wonderful show. I’m ecstatic that it is part of the package.
     
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  10. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    I agree. It's great! The mellotron sounds great live and great to hear some songs they don't do much anymore. Hotel Arizona is a highlight and I believe Glenn dislikes that song so they don't do it now.
     
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  11. Jack

    Jack Senior Member

    I laughed out loud upon hearing Jay and Jeff doing their Altamont reference on the second live disk.
     
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  12. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    No surprise, I’m sure, but I love hearing Jay’s deep baritone harmonies.
     
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  13. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Having Been is No Way to Be


    For me, this is not only the best song on Warm but simply one of the greatest songs Jeff has written in his entire career. I think this song can stand shoulder to shoulder with masterworks by Dylan, Mitchell, Young, you name 'em. This is superb songwriting. I feel oddly...proud of him for writing this. This is a song that could only have been written after going through a long dark tunnel and coming out on the other side of it. So much of Jeff's post-Ghost is Born work has been about hanging on to the important things in life while maintaining his sobriety. On Warm, he sounds like a man who is savoring the rich bounties of his life, especially in light of the loss of his father. His life, family and music are clearly precious to him and those things were hard fought for. He could have been one of so many artists who lost the battle with their mental health demons. But he didn't and it is deeply inspiring to me as a person (and someone who has their own mental health demons).

    Musically, 'Having Been is No Way to Be' features a timeless and gorgeous melody. I love it as a solo acoustic piece and I love the simple, mostly unadorned arrangement placed on the album. The synthesizer solo (by Spencer, according to the credits) is just the right shade of color to add at the 2/3 point in the song. This is beautiful. It chokes me up. Lyrically, it is genius. It's just line after line of amazing observation and emotion. The knowledge of a man still deep in the fight, but winning it. It opens with a view from heaven of earth: 'days pass below like train windows' and the world carries on whether you, or your beloved people, are alive or not. He watches his wife sleep, initially apologizing in a self-deprecating way that she still 'wakes up to [him]' but, by the end of the song it is no longer an apology. It's a vow. 'I'm still here when you wake up to me'

    There are two more lyrical stanzas I must explore. First:

    Now the people say
    What drugs did you take?
    And why don't you start taking them again?
    But they're not my friends
    And if I was dead
    What difference would it ever make to them?

    The vindication Jeff must have felt being able to write this. We've talked about how strongly Jeff (and I) feel that this idea that great art can only come out of suffering is dangerous and stupid. I've seen it even here on this forum. Jeff only made great music when he was a drug addict and an emotional wreck. Jeff Tweedy has the clarity of vision to understand the failings in this way of thinking and to recognize that the people who really care about him and/or his art do not feel this way.

    Finally:

    Just because I can't describe it doesn't mean I shouldn't try
    To untwist the knife
    To unmake my mind
    Having been is no way to be alive

    Art matters. Keep making it, Jeff. This music matters. I got a message from someone in Buenos Aires, Argentina yesterday. It was in Spanish. I could read some of it (I took Spanish in school) but used a translator as well. He expressed how much he loves Warm, Ode to Joy and Love is the King and he said, "How is it possible that such a simple record can mean so much? Perhaps because he is one of the most honest, freed from the intentions of wanting to produce something transcendental." This from someone I don't know half a world away. I was very touched to see this music mattering to him too. And he nailed it. 'Having Been is No Way to Be' is transcendental, without trying to be.
     
  14. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Solo acoustic:

     
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  15. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Having Been Is No Way To Be:
    Yet another winner off of a really solid album. This continues to be Jeff wearing his original Wilco hat, at least primarily (because he does throw in a sprinkle of New Wilco two-thirds through the song). Once again, autobiographical lyrics, this time addressing pressures (or at least perceived pressure) from people urging him to resume his drug-consuming habits of yesteryear.

    Jeff’s buddy, Brian Henneman, wrote a similar song dealing with this kind of peer pressure. In Henneman’s case, it was called “I Quit” and was a song released on the Bottle Rockets’ 2006 Zoysia album. “When I drank, I drank. When I quit, I quit. And it’s not problem if you can’t handle it.”

    Again, I really like the song (and the entire album) with my only quibble being that I dislike these over-long song titles.
     
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  16. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    Absolutely, Madam, and thanks (once again!) for this stellar introduction. Being a big fan of everything Tweedy, I like a lot of his songs, I see merits in almost everything he does, because there’s almost always something at play: intent, intensity, necessity, inspiration, artistry… sometimes a little bit of all of those things. WARM is a case in point, it has purpose, consistency, it has a point to make.

    And it has Having Been Is No Way To Be… @fredyidas talked yesterday about I Know What It’s Like being the centerpiece of WARM and I see his point, but for me the whole project comes into its own on today’s track, the one song where Jeff’s strength, obsessions and talent come together full force, the one song towards which so many of his previous projects and albums converge. If the relationship between an artist and his fans is a “conversation”, as Bruce S. from New Jersey likes to believe, Having Been… is the crucial moment when Jeff articulates his side of it and sets things straight once and for all with all the naysayers and old guards of Wilco troops that stopped following him (as fans, or friends, as he puts it) but never stopped following him (as stalkers and haters, on the music forums and social media). In this song, he reaffirms his personal and artistic choices, showing us once more that he indeed had to free himself from the drugs’n’roll circus and the romanticizing of pain to survive and learn to become a functional human being. He’s chronicled this from the very start of his songwriting career, we’ve seen how his feelings on this matter eveloved… But now is the time, WARM is the album, and Having Been Is No Way To Be is the song, where he’s finally able to say it out loud : he couldn’t care less about letting down the Uncle Tupelo fans, the Americana crowd, the Jay Bennett era army, the experimentalism enthusiasts, the anti-demo advocates, anyone who’s failed to understand that all the changes in his approach of music in his 30 years career have been the result of an existential quest and existential needs, a matter of life and death. He says it crystal clear : not only « having been is no way to be, » but «having been is no way to be alive. »

    So this is the message, but it’s the way he delivers it that is extraordinary. The way he hammers it down, like a rant, like a statement where every line counts, where every line is the continuation of the one before as well as the start of the one that comes next, giving it a stream of consciousness and assertive quality that sounds like a psychoanalytical breakthrough, at the same time poetic and direct, visceral and articulate, with Lennon’s honesty (think Watching the Wheels delivered with Plastic Ono Band starkness) and Dylan’s power (I don’t see deep but I see far and wide… but all the last verse, really), with a little bit of Young's bluntness. By Jeff’s standards, it’s not a very sophisticated melody, he just goes on and on (& on), he has something to say, he won’t let go before he’s said it, addressing us, the ones that stayed, but more importantly her, the one that stayed. And then, « from time to time », the songs lifts up with this A-minor chord change, that indeed changes everything, towards hope, openness, horizons, freeing him from the past and anything that would hold him back, be it fans, critics, those who called him a dad rocker, or even from himself when he could not refrain from paying attention to them…
    The “and I’m alive” line (on the chord change, with that fragile Sukierae voice, full of wonder and astonishment) may be my favorite Tweedy moment ever, making this one of his all-time greatest songs.
     
  17. awsop

    awsop Forum Resident

    Location:
    Netherlands
    Yes, this melody gets under my skin. It has a stumbling rhythm, which settles itself in my mind, strongly like an oak tree.
    Yes, @Parachute Woman you wrote it beautifully and passionately. It’s a reminder to pay attention to the lyrics.
     
  18. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Hmm, I’ll have to think about this as, if this is true, it’s a bit unsettling to me as one who fits several of those categories. My take, as I say above, is that it is specific to his addiction to drugs.

    If it is as you are suggesting, it seems odd that his delivery is in a fashion closely aligned with Uncle Tupelo/original Wilco. To me, pure Tweedy. This song doesn’t let me down. Rather it excites this, (me), Uncle Tupelo/alt-country (I dislike the Americana term so will refuse to identify myself as such) fan.

    Anyway, as always, your post is well thought out and I’ll have to think about it.
     
  19. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Thank you, as always, for your eloquence and insight @Fortuleo! And thank you for giving me the push to go track-by-track on Warm/Warmer. They deserve it.
     
  20. awsop

    awsop Forum Resident

    Location:
    Netherlands
    Love to read both your views, giving food for thought.
    Forget to say, how much I love to hear the words and music are so much in sync in this song, as if they are one.
    There are still some beauties to come, but I think this will be my favorite song of the album.
     
  21. fspringer

    fspringer Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    I think everyone on this thread, save Fortuleo and Parachute Woman, falls easily into any or all of the categories Fortuleo presents. Come on, dude, enough with the passive aggressive baiting. Or stating this as if we're attending some sort of inauguration for Jeff and this hallowed song. It's a good song that would have fit in nicely on Uncle Tupelo's last album!

    I'm also wondering about the lines: "Now the people say/What drugs did you take?/And why don't you start taking them again?" What people are those? Anyone specifically? I can't imagine anyone saying this to his face, or confronting him like this in an official capacity in print. Unless Jeff has concrete, real-life examples of someone, or some group of people, stating this to him, these lines feel like he's stacking the emotional deck.

    While I'm glad he got himself clean and sober, I'm having a hard time with this "amazing grace" take on his life. In that dark/before period, he created a handful of landmark albums, three with a brilliant (if troubled) collaborator, and while still struggling with drug issues, creating a few more landmark albums after the collaborator left. The songs from those albums serve as the creative focus of his band's live shows that are both lucrative and create the legacy that allows him his way of life. His livelihood will always depend on past glories, along with whatever new creative endeavor he undertakes - a sort of high-paying curse all rock stars and bands must endure if they want to make a living at this.

    He also got married and had two sons. I'm assuming he had been just as loving and hands-on as a father when he was having his issues with drugs - or at least he didn't note much if any guilt as a wayward father in his book. He buried both his parents - I can assure you, both times it's a shocking, jarring experience that sets your world on a different path in ways that supersede whatever personal issues you're having.

    My point? It's always good when someone clarifies his life, particularly when the clarification involves ditching the illusion of drug use, which starts as a party and ends as another full-time job with lousy benefits. Of course, when you stop anesthetizing yourself, you realize how hard life is and have to deal with the emotions and realities you numbed yourself against. And I'm sure Jeff's life has just as many problems as it did before. Different problems. Hopefully better problems that he's now better equipped to handle. But most victories in life are followed by the realization that there are more victories and failures on the horizon, some small, some even larger than the ones you've already experienced. Ultimately, you realize life is a straight line, from the moment you're born until you die, and the line is life itself. Before and after are constructs we use to create narratives that please and inform us as we go along, but the only reality is life itself.
     
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  22. awsop

    awsop Forum Resident

    Location:
    Netherlands
    I agree the value of suffering is overrated. For each example one can give a counter example, van Gogh vs. Rembrandt.

    On the other hand what would Jeff's lyrics and music be like without his issues with mental health and drugs, and without his relationship problems ?
    How many interesting songs can be written about a life without loss and setbacks ?
    Some people are already in their forties or fifties before they encounter the first adversity in their life.
     
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  23. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    Sorry if I wasn't clear. We all fit in some of these categories! I certainly do. Come to think of it, I guess I fit in all of them! I’m an Uncle Tupelo fan, definitely a member of the Americana crowd and of the Jay era army, I’ve admired the experimental stuff and agree some of it's what makes Wilco such an important band. And sometimes, I too wish he’d move on from what I call the demo years, or sing again in the Ashes of the American Flags voice. In my opinion, it’s clear that Jeff’s always thought the bond between artists and fans should be like blood brothers oaths or “till death do us part” marriages. Of course he shouldn’t take it so much at heart, or so personally. Needless to say everyone is entitled to move on and stop listening to an artist. It happens to all of them, especially when winning partnerships are broken. But truth be told, Wilco/Tweedy is that rare breed of artist that manages to elicit a continuing obsession (with hatred and insults thrown in) from those who stopped listening or coming to the shows. It's never stopped since the Jay(s) years!! Never! From day one after the UT split, you could read extremely aggressive/dismissive stuff in every Wilco threads of every music forum. And it was worst after Bennett's sacking, and then even worst because of the "mellowness" of Sky Blue Sky etc. As previously discussed many pages ago, it’s obvious to me Jeff’s paid too much attention to these attacks, he’s paid too much attentions to the comments saying he was now “content” or "dad rocking", or that he was 100 times better when he was an addict or in a state of depression, or playing with different collaborators, or playing differently with the current ones (all of which has been written hundreds of times on the forums ans social media, and even in the music press!). Some of this is legitimate criticism : I think Summerteeth is much better than Star Wars and that it would be a good idea to have the band members flesh out the songs together in the studio. But how could anyone write "whatever drugs he was taking back in the day, he should take them again" as I've read on the viachicago forum?
    He responded many times to all the criticisms, in song, in interviews — and my opinion is he shouldn’t have done so. That's on him. But in this sublime song, a song that would've indeed been a highlight of any of his artistic phases, he finally manages to speak his piece about all that and make peace with it, and move on. I guess that's why it sounds like such a liberating breakthrough and such an important (and great) song : it’s not vindictive at all, it’s him realizing he was wrong all along to respond and suffer personally from these attacks, when he should've looked the other way. And watch her sleep.
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2020
  24. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Yes, I agree that the general response to Sky Blue Sky is an example of what Jeff's talking about here. A beautiful, adult album wrestling with maintaining health and getting better...and it was dismissed as bland dad rock in some corners. It's not a literal "you made better albums when you were on drugs" but the context is in that vicinity.

    And, oh yes--we all definitely have our own expectations and likes/dislikes when it comes to Jeff's oeuvre (or that of any of our favorite artists!) Me included. We all drag a whole bunch of baggage around with us. I'm all about supporting the lesser known and lesser revered albums in the catalog...but if you ask me my favorite I'm still boring and normie and say Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. :)
     
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  25. jalexander

    jalexander Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Some thoughtful responses here and I think it’s because we all agree that this is a pivotal song in Jeff’s catalogue. I’ll go down the middle and say I think it’s a bit of both moving on from addiction and the musical past.

    The whole “what kind of drugs did you take” bit situates the song in how fans romanticize the relationship between the author’s pain and recklessness with the songs that narrated their life. Now Jeff is at a point where he can really move on from that. First as a person - because why should a living breathing human being (husband, father...) remain in such a negative way of life for the sake of people entirely external to his life? Second as an artist - because why does art have to derive from self-abuse?

    Of course that message is intrinsically tied into his musical past. Both the alt-country and alt-Rock worlds have certainly glamorized self-abuse. Whereas woodshedding at the Loft everyday isn’t quite as sexy and yields different results.

    What’s important for Jeff as a human and artist is that he doesn’t care... he is happy with the results and what does it matter if no one else is? He has found greater success as a human and by the very virtue of continuing to create he has succeeded as an artist.

    So even though this song establishes that my opinion is of no consequence, I will provide it just the same. And in short, it’s great. Musically it sits nicely in Wilco 3.0 mode. Yeah, the roots, acoustic feel could sit on Anodyne. But then there’s that multi-tracked fuzz guitar, a sound that didn’t get introduced until Yankee. And the synth is like something off of Whole Love. Last, the hushed but emphatic vocal is Jeff in Sukierae/Schmilco/etc mode. Plus the song is lean, much in line with his recent work.

    Because of this, I don’t see it as a turning back on his past. It’s him pulling on everything in his past but definitely moving forward.
     
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