"Evergreen"- I can feel some of the Warm/Warmer fatigue, but I'm also enjoying getting to know these albums better. "Evergreen" is definitely one of the strongest songs on Warmer. I was listening to Love Is the King last night. At least that album he decided to make it sound less like a demo. It seems more fully realized like he spent more time with the recordings and the production. I'm guessing that if we were not in a pandemic, some of those songs would have been on the next Wilco album. "Evergreen" is a beauty. It has a similar vibe that would fit right in on Love Is The King and a melody that could have showed up on Mermaid Avenue. I love all that echo in the lavatory performance. 4.5/5
A number of songs on Love is the King sound like Jeff set himself an assignment to write a country song based on an idea or a phrase, and I'd bet that he did something like that with "Evergreen," as well. Perhaps he had the phrase, "Evergreen, Evergreen/ Have you even seen anything, Evergreen?" in mind, and grafted it onto some verses in his notebook. In any case, he must have been pleased with the results: you can tell that he put a lot of care into the arrangement and production. If he had curated a dozen songs for a single release, which I think he should've done, this song certainly would've made the cut. Maybe he kept this and a couple other songs in reserve, just so the outtakes album would have a few ringers to hold it together. Lyrically, this ties back to "Sick Server,' where he fondly recalls the times when he'd call his wife from the road, except now he's back to addressing the present and future. The message to his wife in "Evergreen" seems to be of a piece with the next track, as well. And I would say that he's not just depressed, evidently, but the last two songs on the album indicate... well, he wants to tell her that his love grows stronger, it is evergreen, despite her doubts and the problems between them. He wants his home to be a haven, a place in the shade, but is it, really? Maybe Jeff is conflicted; he dreams of peace and contentment, but really he has a need for strife and the storms. The pain proves that it's real.
I have no choice but to upgrade ‘Evergreen.’ True story. I was driving home after delivering (early) Thanksgiving dinner to our kids, just departing Olympia, when Evergreen started playing from my Apple library (on shuffle mode). Thought to myself, “wow,” then noticed I was passing the exit for Evergreen State College. Destiny. So now I decided the song was too short!
I can understand the fatigue occurring at this stage. Funnily, I was always experience that listening to Sukierae straight through but never Warm/Warmer. Evergreen is a delightful little song. Beautiful melody and lovely instrumentation. Like @Fortuleo I’ve always connected it with the early Wilco outtake Childlike and Evergreen. There are musical as well as the obvious lyrical ties. But here’s where Warmer seems critical in Tweedy’s development to me. I really don’t hear these songs as demo-like. I hear Jeff working towards simplicity and it’s something he’s been working on for a long time. Hear me out: On the SBS bonus DVD, Jeff talks a lot about just getting down to writing some songs. That didn’t prevent him from more senate work on WTA and Whole Love, but you’re can certainly hear him getting Wilco into a less-is-more mode despite being a six-piece band of top tier musicians Sukierae was his first crack at just accomplishing what he wanted to achieve on his own, and it is relatively successful With Star Wars and Schmilco, these lessons are tried to fold back into Wilco’s experimental pop-art-alt-country thing. Obviously not everyone loves all of this, but it’s definitely trying to hew away any unnecessary edges. I mean compare Impossible Germany >One Wing>Cry All Day. He’s definitely trying to get increasingly minimal. He’s talked about his lyric writing as well being an attempt to get out of the way of the words So he returns to a solo effort (this time Jeff Tweedy not Tweedy) and he seems from my vantage to put a lot of effort into arranging these songs quite cleanly and simply. No chaos like Diamond Light on Sukierae, even. His efforts to learn to play his instruments so that he can achieve a certain sound in his head reflect this. While Warm/Warmer go hand-in-hand, he’s never talked about Warmer being leftovers. I think these songs are very much intended to be this way. When I listen to Warmer, I don’t really treat it on a song-by-song basis. Instead, I always consume it as whole, and it works very well for me. The second side becomes very meditative - almost like the notorious Less Than You Think. It just draws me in and asks me to slow down and listen. Which then leads into this beautiful tune and tomorrow’s number, about which I have some very strong feelings. To return to Evergreen, I went back and listened to Soil Samples today with the acoustic demos of Childlike & Evergreen and Someone Else’s Song. Both are so simple and plaintive (especially compared to the live versions of Someone a Else’s a Song). Later in the day Shakin’ Sugar came on shuffle with all its electronic experimentation. A wonderful song, but these newer Tweedy songs feel like a full circle. He’s taking all he’s learned over the years and bringing it into those early ideas of just writing a simple song that is no more than it needs to be. In that regard, I think Warmer is the launching pad for both Ode to Joy and Love is the King, even more so than Warm.
"Evergreen" is perfectly pleasant and nice. Seems like a song that might have appeared on Mermaid Avenue.
We come to the final track on the entire Warm/Warmer project. Guaranteed For a song with a title taken from the lyrics "Tragedy is guaranteed" this is actually a pretty hopeful note to end the whole affair on. You can't live a life free of pain. It's not possible and every one of us suffers in our way, but Jeff sings that these struggles can bring you closer to those you love and help you forge an even deeper bond. Things go wrong And our love is stronger that way I agree with the sentiment of 'fire-forged' relationships, but it is a slightly unsettling note. The melody is quite nice on this and Jeff sings in the sleepiest hush of a voice he has, bringing this whole thing to a close with a final gentle lullaby. The thing with this track is that it has the same title as the last song on Eddie Vedder's Into the Wild soundtrack, which is one of my favorite albums and I like that 'Guaranteed' better than this one, no matter how pretty this may be. Overall Warmer Thoughts Yep, I'm definitely Team Warm. Going track by track revealed to me the beauties and complexities of that album, how amazingly it was sequenced and how the themes of acceptance of death were so artfully explored throughout it. It also featured a couple of tracks I consider to be among the best that Jeff has ever written. In contrast, Warmer does unfortunately feel a bit like a b-sides compilation to me. It isn't as cohesive or focused as Warm and--more importantly--I just don't think the songs are as strong. There's nothing here that I count among my personal favorite Jeff Tweedy compositions. It also includes one of my least favorite Jeff songs. Maybe this format worked against Warmer, because I was pretty tired of this whole 'sound' by the time we worked our way to the last few tracks, but I do feel in my heart that I just don't like this album as much as the first one. Song ranking: 1. Sick Server (A-) 2. Evergreen (B+) 3. Family Ghost (B+) 4. Empty Head (B+) 5. Orphan (B) 6. Ultra Orange Room (B) 7. Ten Sentences (B) 8. Landscape (B-) 9. Guaranteed (B-) 10. And Then You Cut it in Half (C-) End result? It's a B album for me and I put it in the same general vicinity as an album like Schmilco in terms of quality, whereas Warm is at least in the company of Wilco (The Album). Use today for thoughts on the last song, Warmer and the Warm/Warmer project as a whole. Tomorrow we will finally get back to Wilco and begin our journey through their most recent album, 2019's Ode to Joy. Thanks!
Guaranteed ends the album on a weird and powerful sentiment : the lyrics, strumming and melody are comforting like a campfire adult love song, as heard in this lovely live take, where Jeff sounds once again a bit like Mark Oliver Everett (the Eels guy). Maybe it’s the same smallish guitar he’s playing here ? Gotta love his banter at the beginning! Anyway, on the album version, the whole arrangement, made of squeaky little guitar noises and spacey keyboards, some straight, some backward, seem to unsettle the track from within. In insight, it's a comforting song, but sat on a bed of alienation and anguish, just as the whole WARM/WARMER/LET’SGO project, where Jeff makes a point of never going as far as taking his recovery (from addiction but also depression and any mental condition, really) or his relative “well being” for granted. “Don’t let your pain go to waste” can be seen as the defining or definitive Tweedy line, and it could be applied to every era of his career. If it’s serious, it’s quite heartbreaking. If it’s tongue in cheek, it’s quite funny… or maybe even more heartbreaking, in its own funny way.
Guaranteed: nope, don’t like this at all. A letdown after ‘Evergreen.’ Team Warm for me. Three songs, including @Parachute Woman ’s worst-of-the-worst ( ), could have made the Warm A-Team.
I don't look at them as an either/or proposition; he would have been wiser to call it Evergreen or Family Ghost and not play up that they were songs from the same sessions of the previous album. I can complain all day long about my disappointment with his production/vocal choices, but the reality is if the song is there, I'm there, regardless of whether it sounds like someone woke him from a mid-afternoon nap to do the lead vocal. Roughly half of both the albums felt like filler to me, anywhere from the occasional bad song to songs that weren't really bad, but just not good enough to bear repeated listens for me. Again, he shouldn't be singled out for this crime against humanity - all recording artists with multi-decade careers fall into this category after their magical run for the roses earlier in their careers. Occasionally, they'll break through with a later-career masterpiece or very good album, and I guess that's the hope that keeps many of us going. Judging by 60s/70s bands and artists, he might be recording for another 20 years! Re: Eddie Vedder's "Guaranteed." I don't even like Pearl Jam, and I thought the Into the Wild/Ukulele Songs albums were brilliant. "Don't even like" doesn't quite describe how I felt about Seattle bands in the 90s ... I couldn't stand that whole scene and thought that they were stripping rock and roll of all its joy and fun. While I liked the more hard-rock elements of that overall sound, I absolutely despised the self seriousness and dark/depressive overtones. Wilco felt like a birthday party in comparison ... and they were no birthday party! That said, on those albums, Vedder pulled it in, just sang, understated and not howling, reduced the production to voice and single instrument. I was stunned by how good he was! Live and learn. I tend to look back more open-heartedly on past trends I despised in real time, like grunge or disco. I love higher-end disco now and find value in the more melodic/less bombastic grunge. You couldn't have paid me to buy that stuff in its time!
Anyone else finally back in? (I had no idea what my password was and my phone has three all backed up...but anyway, here I am again). re: Vedder’s ‘Guaranteed.’ Just listened to it. Very nice.
Harsh crowd today! Well let me be the one to spread some Guaranteed love... in short this has pretty much become my favourite Tweedy song. Previously I would have said Handshake Drugs, or Theologians, or maybe Impossible Germany, or the live version of Ashes. But something about this song just hits me hard every single time. While I’m usually a music over lyrics guy (all of my other faves have sprawling instrumental passages), it’s the lyrics that hit first here. He ties the very specific (hospitals and bars are obvious nods to Suzie’s cancer and Lounge Axe) into the universal through some incredible lines... “A normal heart is a shopping cart left by the side of the road”? Wow. And then there’s the overall lyrical theme about dealing with suffering in life. @Parachute Woman has already pointed out some great lines, but it’s the conclusion that always gets me... “don’t let your pain go to waste”. What a message for life, especially if tragedy is indeed guaranteed. It also brings the Warm(er) cycle full circle. If you recall, Bombs Above has the whole “man so drunk” narrative about the validity of suffering. And now we come back to how Jeff has made sense of it all. The music, too, is wonderful. I just love the bleary-eyed vibe to the song (and to the album, including the cover!). This morning Please Tell My Brother came on shuffle and as I mentioned yesterday with the Soil Sample 7”, you can hear how Jeff has re-embraced the simple folk style that goes back to Uncle Tupelo and early Wilco. Yet, it is embellished so subtly in a very modern way. If you listen closely, there are a lot of layers in this song. Multiple electric guitar parts - some very dissonant evoking the YHT/Ghost era. And even some keyboard (maybe a mellotron) - that feels like a hint of Summerteeth. But none of it is at all flashy. So again, I think this is the point of Warmer. The transition from How Will I Find You to Orphan and the resolution of Bombs Above in Guaranteed suggests these two track listings are very intentional. I get why some/most will view Warmer as the lesser of the two. But I really appreciate the light-handed touch on this album. Both albums are strong, but Warmer gets the slight edge for me.
"Guaranteed" - Jeff has indicated in some other songs that he has a stormy relationship with his wife, he's a cold captain tied to the mast and all that. Here, he says it directly: "I'm a piece of work and you're no walk in the park." But evidently he is someone who believes that the pain makes it real, the struggle just makes the bond stronger. "Tragedy is guaranteed," but, "our love is stronger that way." Perhaps that's the inevitable point of view from someone who has lived with chronic pain throughout his life. He'd naturally want to believe that there is a purpose in his struggles. What does not kill him can only make him stronger. Maybe his parents and other members of his family set a model of behavior in his impressionable mind, as well. Anyway, there it is. His closing message. We will survive, and all the better for having had the fight. Incidentally, Beth Orton wrote a song called "Shopping Trolley," where she compares herself to a broken shopping cart by the side of the road, as she struggles to come to grips with a bewildering relationship in which there is, "Always one more peak to climb/ It really seems there is no finishing line." And it so happens to be on her album Comfort of Strangers, produced by Jim O'Rourke. I wonder if Jeff had that floating around in the back of his mind for a decade, until it came out in his line, "A normal heart is a shopping cart, left by the side of the road." I think that I'd keep 5 of the songs from Warmer. Some of the others seem like a promising start, there is some quality there, but ultimately there is something about them that bothers me. They sound unfinished, there's an annoying guitar lead, whatever. I enjoy the whole project more if I cut it down to this 14-track playlist: Some Birds Family Ghost Don't Forget Sick Server How Will I Find You? Let's Go Rain From Far Away I Know What It's Like Landscape Having Been Is No Way to Be The Red Brick Warm (When the Sun Has Died) Evergreen Guaranteed 47 minutes, a nice flow. Maybe I'll play with putting "The Red Brick" + "Warm" at the end, but for now, I'll honor his choice for the project closer. As it is, I think this program is better than either of the albums, individually. It might even become one of my favorites.
I bought WARMER a few weeks after release for BIG bucks, having missed out on RSD (if the LP was ever available in France in the first place). So I was a bit annoyed when it was re-released as a double set, with an extra track etc. for much less money. But ultimately, it turned out fine because, as proven by this thread, WARM and WARMER are best experienced as two separate records. Sure, they are part of the same project and supposed to complete one another (as perfectly explained by @jalexander). However, I think the last three weeks have shown that it’s definitely NOT a good double LP. The problem is the lesser songs sound almost exactly like the best ones, and you just can’t take everything in in one sitting, there’s no way anyone can sustain that kind of attention and focus for the whole 21 tracks coming from that same space of hushed vocals, weird little steel guitar and dead strings strumming. Nevertheless, WARMER is (almost) as beautiful as his big brother and makes for a fascinating listen on its own. It’s so laid back it could almost be mistaken for background music. But on a closer listen, it appears to be a sadder, moodier and more fatalistic record. It can also be unsettling, almost creepy, full of anxiety and dread of getting back to a deranged mental state. But the highlights (Orphan, Family Ghost, Landscape, Evergreen, Guaranteed at least for me) are all superb-to-sublime songs. Anyway, enough of this? Well, there’s still one, no, TWO songs, to review in the project, two songs that work as user’s manual or disclaimers for the whole concept. The first is the downbeat fingerpicked ballad Drawing from Memory (Charlie) with a weird warble effect, another one of the little Lynchian gimmicks that Jeff adds to the songs to remind us that they are not written from a “content” or happy place, but as an exorcism of a troubled past full of ghosts, that can be painful for him to revisit or confront. Now, who’s this Charlie, I don’t have the slightest idea… The other (even rarer) tune is Life Story, which was part of the audio Let’s Go book. One of the liveliest tunes of the whole sessions, it’s a good straightforward alt. country rocker based on a pretty cool fuzz guitar riff, a customary high/low double track vocal and even a Hammond organ at some point. The chorus “I think I know how this is gonna end” is a prefect summation of the whole WARM/WARMER/LET’S GO state of mind, part defeat, part defiant, always existential.
You stole my thunder with Life Story @Fortuleo despite feeling like a rookie among some serious Wilco fans out there, I discovered this rarity on my own and am pretty sure I was the first to get it into YouTube (although I kept my video unlisted). My rip of the audio includes the last line of the book which I thought was kind of apt: https://youtu.be/uJ1X_8K6798 Your assessment of Warmer - “ on a closer listen, it appears to be a sadder, moodier and more fatalistic record“ - is exactly what I love about it.
Geez, he sat on a track like this when he had all those snoozers hovering in the background of both albums? The album needed more of this! The oft-quoted Nietzsche line ... the subject of many mediocre country/pop songs written and sung by folks in their 20s! Surely not by a 50ish guy who's been through the ringer in terms of self medication and depression. Past a certain age, you realize that quote presents quite a romantic take on life. Debilitating situations and choices surely do kill you, sometimes in large increments, but far more often in very small ones, in matters of degree that accumulate over the course of decades. I've seen way too many "won't live to see 30" dudes stumble into their 50s with the face and body of men in their 70s. I suspect Jeff damn well knows certain things have taken their toll on him physically, mentally and emotionally. With him, I get much more of a sense of quiet resolve. My only hope is that he goes on using music to keep a lid on it!
The site is back! I missed out on my morning ritual, so here it's early evening and I am finally listening to the last song. I didn't get any alerts so I thought others might not have access to the forum. "Guaranteed"- A very quiet note to end a very quiet album. It might not make any immediate impression, but the more I listen to it, the more I like its little intricacies. It works well as the last song. 3.5/5 "Life Story"- First time hearing this song. I agree with @fspringer that the album could have used a little pick up like this, but maybe Jeff didn't think it fit in with the rest of the songs? I like it. Only listened once, but will revisit it more this evening. Now I know that I prefer Warm over Warmer and despite some saying the opposite, I think this would have been a good double album with some clever sequencing. He could have also made one really excellent album. However, that's always a problem because most would disagree on what songs to cut. It's fine released how it was. Warmer does feel a bit more like the leftovers, but Jeff says that is not the case at all. I believe he said Warmer almost came out first as Warm. I came out of these discussions and listening sessions with greater love for both of these records. My ranking of Warmer Family Ghost 4.5/5 Evergreen 4.5/5 Landscape 4/5 Orphan 4/5- I originally gave this a 3.5 but I think it deserves a bump. Empty Head 3.5/5 And Then You Cut It In Half 3.5/5 Guaranteed 3.5/5 Sick Server 3/5 Ten Sentences 3/5 Ultra Orange Room 2.5/5 My single album would be: Some Birds I Know What It's Like From Far Away Family Ghost Landscape Having Been Is No Way To Be Evergreen Orphan Don't Forget How Hard Is It For A Desert To Die The Red Brick Warm (When The Sun Has Died) That would be 40 minutes (8 from Warm and 4 from Warmer). I'm leaving out some good ones, but this would be a really amazing single record. I will listen to this sequence tonight and see how it plays. I might make a few changes later.
After Warmer came out I made an iTunes playlist of Jeff’s non-Wilco material. Tried to be representative of his work while keeping it to something that hangs together and is not overly long. In retrospect I’d probably add more Golden Smog and probably Family Gardener, but here it is for those interested. A nice 48-minute listen. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaM13yQDhPccK4dUPu7aSEF3PKDuEvxep
I'm quite impressed with the lyrics to "Guaranteed". I'm not as enamored with the music, unfortunately. Overall, Warmer is a decent enough album with some invariably strong lyrics (with a couple of exceptions - still not clear on the intent of "...And Then You Cut It In Half" or "Ten Sentences") but it doesn't grab me in quite the same way as Warm. Still, the first two tracks, especially "Orphan", hit hard and would rank highly on my list of Tweedy compositions. "Life Story" is good. Thanks for posting that!
After the Case of the Locked Down Forum I would like to suggest that a number of you that provide detailed thoughts/reviews/musings (and obviously spend some time putting these thoughts to paper) might go through your posts and save them outside the forum. I’d hate for some of the really brilliant insights to potentially disappear. Just a thought.
Welcome back everybody! Very strange day yesterday. Ode to Joy Released: October 4, 2019 It's hard to believe that Ode to Joy came out only a little over a year ago. It feels like it came out in a different lifetime. So much has happened since then. It was the band's first release since 2016 and I will admit that I began to wonder whether Jeff was going to quietly disband Wilco and just continue making solo projects. I still worry that may happen at some point. Of course, Wilco can't go on forever (can they?)... Ode to Joy was announced in July, along with the lead single 'Love is Everywhere.' When it finally came out in October, it was met with what I can only describe as a mixed response. Most of the critical reviews were very positive, but the thread here on the forums was divided between those who found the album beautiful and emotional and those who found it boring or were especially not into the slow pace and 'plodding' percussion style. The sound of Ode to Joy goes back to how it was made, with Jeff recording the tracks just with Glenn--essentially building a lot of the album around the drums--before having the rest of the guys come in to expand and complete the arrangements. Jeff has been working with this Jeff + percussion structure on his solo projects (with Spencer on the kit) but bringing it to Wilco created a different sort of result. No offense to Spencer, who I think is really good, but Glenn Kotche is simply world class and and the percussion on Ode to Joy is imaginative and superb. As I mentioned, reviews were very positive across the board. Paste called it "larger-than-life soft rock full of both grand ideas about the state of our world and small musings about matters of the heart." Vinyl Chapters wrote, "The album urges us, in the present world, to hunker down and appreciate loved ones and each other, more now than ever." My personal favorite review was the one by Chris DeVille for Stereogum. This named it Album of the Week and said, "Yet with this batch of songs, they’ve figured out how to infuse a new-school Wilco record with old-school Wilco’s dynamism and grandeur...Ode To Joy is an album about seeking hope and meaning in a world that seems to be decaying beyond repair." For myself, Ode to Joy was something of a revelation. I have been enjoying and listening to everything released by the band and Jeff this decade, but Ode to Joy hit me in a different way. This album profoundly touched me at a time when I needed it desperately and I now rank it easily in my top five favorite Wilco releases. I wrote effusively about how beautiful I thought it was here on the forums when it was first released and returned again this February to write another review, praising it especially for how adult the album was and how Jeff wrote about commitment all through it. My love for Ode to Joy is in fact what inspired me to run this very thread. I thought this was great, special art and it was a shame that it would never be talked about at the depth it deserved and any discussion at all about it would be buried in an avalanche of Beatles threads. I was extremely sick in the very early part of this year (looking back on it, my whole family now believes that I had COVID-19, but it wasn't yet known in America). I've never been so sick. I was miserable and I remember listening to Ode to Joy--an album that is a cry for meaning and positivity in a world that feels ever more chaotic and negative--in bed in the dark over and over again, gleaning peace and warmth from it. And this was before 2020 really spiraled out of control. I have continued to revisit Ode to Joy all through the year, and I've been looking forward to this moment in our Wilco thread for a long time. Since the day I opened it, really. To have a chance to write about how this art is beautiful and it matters and has mattered to me. There was a lot of talk at release time about the album title and whether it was jokey or not. The working title had been "The Trouble with Caring" (which does sound kind of jokey or sardonic). I like to think that Ode to Joy is completely straight as a title, just like Love is the King from this year. It's a new phase for Jeff's songwriting and a new way of confronting the pains and perils of life. Love is everywhere, baby. Bright Leaves The sequencing of Ode to Joy is pretty fascinating to me. Like A Ghost is Born, it seems to be deliberately designed to challenge the listener. Put simply, the album opens with a bunch of slow songs in a row and doesn't start peppering in the more uptempo stuff until at least halfway through. This definitely contributed to the way some listeners responded to the album. But goodness. Listening to "Bright Leaves" after going through Warm and Warmer for the past few weeks, it immediately sounds so dynamic and full. Right away, this is Wilco and not Jeff Tweedy. The drums are extremely prominent, as they will be for the entire length of the album, pumping like a heartbeat. The song swells with the notes of multiple guitarists with differing playing styles. There's Nels, winding and quivering. There's the chime of rhythm--is that Pat? There's the swoop of the bass guitar--John, it's so great to hear you! This sounds like it was played and arranged with care and thoughtfulness. Not that the solo albums weren't, but they definitely had a feeling of keeping it simple deliberately. 'Bright Leaves' is simple, but it is also shimmering with the fingerprints of people who are not Jeff Tweedy. The song has a wintry feel to it in the lyrics, a couple compared to bright leaves hidden underneath the snow. So much of the album will be about 'the world' and external forces versus the smaller world of our personal lives, essentially framed as an oasis. "You never change" is the repeated phrase of the fade-out. This can be both a positive--you are a rock, my constant--and a negative--a lack of evolution. It's ambiguous, which I like. The same is true of the line "Sometimes I'm just a hole for you to get in." This suggests both a place of safety (like a bunker) and a place of despair. The lyrics all through Ode to Joy are great, with Jeff applying a lot of the very personal angles of his solo projects to a Wilco album.
I may as well just cut to the chase and say it outright; I’m going to disappoint @Parachute Woman despite not wanting to. I need to look for the Ode To Joy thread to see what I said about it back when it was first released, to see if I’ve changed my mind at all. I must not have thought too highly of the album because I cannot recall a single track from it now. As for this opening track? It must rank as one of the poorest choices to start off a Wilco album...pretty much ever. Though I think I awarded that dubious honor to an earlier song (but, fortunately, can’t recall what that was). This is my least favorite type of Tweedy vocal that is laid on top of a bit of noodling, plunking and utilizes (I started to write “features” but that isn’t true) a Kotche that must be bored out of his mind. The bright side? There’s nowhere to go but up!
Ah ! I was convinced it wasn't on Youtube and was planning to send a wetransfer link of my own rip to all the thread regulars by PM, before stumbling across that video… Sorry I stole your thunder ! (and for your information I don't have the recent "It's a Whisper", and I sure hope someone steps in to help at some point) Anyway, back to Wilco !! I can feel the relief of many now that we’re past the WARM ocean… But then Bright Leaves starts and it’s like “oh god, again ?”. Because, well, this song does feature Jeff hush-singing his musical version of mumblecore. Come on already!! Is it a Wilco record or what??? In truth, it must be one of the less spectacular openers in the history of rock. If we narrow that down to Wilco, well, it’s even more obvious : no matter if you like it or not (and I do!), you have to give it to @Zeki that all of their openers (including the combo ELK/More…, taken as one song) are more immediate than this one, if not simply better. However, I’ll say it right from the start: like Lady Parachute (bravo once more for the superb album and track intro!), I think this LP is an extraordinary piece of work. And I’ll argue that, underwhelming as it might appear at first, Bright Leaves is also quite a suitable opener for it. The drums are telling us the story: they sound like heavy steps from a sleeping giant (the band ?), trying to pull himself out of hibernation to start moving/walking/working again. So yes, it’s awkward, heavy, slow, rusty (the guitar noises and electronic samples), every step being pondered and accounted for. The album takes baby steps, it doesn’t start full force, it has to learn how to walk all over again, like a newborn or a creature discovering a new planet, before getting to the next song (same plodding primitive beat, only a tad livelier), then the next etc… Jeff had this to say about the album’s approach: “we wanted it to sound like people from the future doing their version of rock music, if they’d never heard a note of it but had been instructed that it was based on heavy mostly binary rhythms and vague folkish structures”. And this song fits the bill. It’s also a self-conscious transition from WARMER and maybe a disclaimer addressed to the harsh critics and disappointed fans: “guys, girls, I know I mumble, I write slow dirges, all my songs sound the same, whatever… I'm sorry to say I don’t intend to stop anytime soon”. In that sense, like our hostess just wrote, it is the spiritual follow up to A Ghost Is Born : it doesn’t start in a very “inviting” way but gradually, the LP will open up, like someone who needs to be reassured he’s in a trusting and loving environment to start loosening up and being completely at ease. For now, the beast is weary, it tests the waters, not committing itself too much. We'll need to gain its trust by our patience and by not rushing it too much. Eventually, if we give it some time, it will reveal itself, step after step, song after song.
I just revisited the Ode to Joy thread and found that I wrote this about this opening track: “I’m listening again and have decided the opening track, Bright Leaves, is a keeper! There’s a lot going on that I didn’t catch initially.” Hmm?!!
