One and a Half Stars: I like this song, especially the live version posted above. The Apple Music exclusive intro has Jeff saying that he spent time at the family home after his parents died. He was struck by how his childhood bedroom, his domain, during those years, was basically the same as it is now. A space with records and books “and not much else.”
Unlock my body and move myself to dance In the warm liquid flowing blowing glass Classical music blasting masks the ringing in my ears Used in both “Chinese Apple” and “Heavy Metal Drummer.”
One and a Half Stars. Check this one out on YouTube and you’ll seen some long-time fans agree with that rating! Here’s the downside... listen to those first few bars and it’s like, “another dull plodder? Really?” And then the lyrics come in, “more stuff about returning to your last and depression? Really?” But there’s an upside too... part of the reason I really liked Warmer is that I felt like the songs, while maybe not classics on an individual basis, really hung together. I think Schmilco tried to do that, but less successfully. That approach, I think, is the template for OTJ. These first three songs - while not as immediate as the amazing three openers of Schmilco - really draw you in if you actually sit down and listen. Every time I do that with OTJ, it’s really rewarding. This is quite different from their earlier art-rock stuff. Think about how Yankee grabs you with that siren-like sound at the beginning of ITTBRH. Or how Ghost starts so quiet and then shocks you with the guitar burst halfway through the opening track (I was in the car the first time - yikes!). There is no prompt here on OTJ. You either sit down and listen, or you’ll miss it as just some depressing string of dirges. So sit down... soak in the lyrics... “I’m left with only my desire to change/so if I stay in bed all day/I won’t escape my domain”. Anyone feel that way lately?!? And then the music. This is the rubber band guitar sound I mentioned weeks and weeks ago. Jeff has spent years making his acoustic guitars sound as dull as possible (all mahogany... small bodies... ancient strings), and then he finds these crappy 1940s “cowboy” guitars marketed at kids wanting to sing Gene Autry songs. This is not vintage Martin territory with lush overtones from decades old Brazilian rosewood. And then he puts rubber bridges on them!!!! What?!? The effect is a guitar sound so dull it’s comical. Then Mikael, that brilliant keyboard magician who can go from gospel glory to electronic looping deconstruction in a heartbeat plays simple whole note chords. And Glenn - the guy who did a solo piece on kitchen faucets - plods along. But wait... 0:51... John sneaks in a melodic countermelody on the bass. 0:55... Glenn wakes up at the “desire to change” line. 1:08... don’t stay in bed! The sun rises with a keyboard melody evocative of the Celeste in VU’s Sunday Morning. The second verse becomes more forceful and emphatic... “I’m worried about the way we’re all living and this is my love song”... 2:32... second chorus and the sun rises higher with a chiming dulcimer type sound like we first heard back in Ghost... Nels is creating fluttering birds in the background. Magical. But if you just listened to the first few bars and said, “more of the same... 1.5 stars”... well, what can I say? You missed a beautiful sunrise. Rewind. Put your headphones on and try again. And thanks @Parachute Woman and @Fortuleo for those great live versions. I’ve watched both many times. The solo version shows what’s great about the Jeff solo shows.
"One and a Half Stars"- Some good insight on this song so far. I never picked up on the re-use of lyrics since I was not very familiar with "Ultra Orange Room". He does it again on Love Is King and uses lyrics from this album. I like this song and it never even crossed my mind to rate it one and half stars! How dare those nasty YouTube listeners! I like the lyrics "I can't escape my domain". Some interesting galloping drums and a good bass line. This is also a case where I think Jeff's rubber band guitar sounds great with everything else going on. I never really noticed, but it does sound like it starts on the same chord and strum as "California Stars". Don't have much else to say. @jalexander and @Fortuleo have already summed it up beautifully. Put those headphones on and try again! 4.5/5
This thread inspired me to listen to Warm/Warmer/Love Is The King, since I hadn't really given those albums much attention when they came out. I think me and Jeff Tweedy have definitely gone in different directions regarding our musical tastes. Since the Tweedy album, I've found his output to be very hard to enjoy, whether solo or with Wilco. There are some bright spots on every album, and I'm happy that he's in such a productive space - it's always a gift to see an artist working so furiously this late into the game, but overall, I don't like his music anymore.
"Bright Leaves" is incredible. A couple people made the comment this is a headphones album. I mostly listen through various headphones and a headphone amp, so to me everything is these days. But I can understand where it's probably easier to catch all the things going on in "Bright Leaves" with cans on or earbuds in unless you've got some excellent speakers set up just so. I think "Before Us" is one of the best songs Jeff has ever written. I don't like describing it this way, really, but it's U2 "With Or Without You" big, regardless of who has and hasn't heard it. If I'm being hypercritical (and why not, look at who we are) the chopper sound at the end is a bit too much on the nose, but than it devolves (or evolves) into a weird electronic sound, which is very key. I identify with "One And A Half Stars." I can't even understand my own depression when I'm not in it. It seems like silly behavior. But when you're in it, it's anything but silly, and it seems endless. Anyway, this song captures a lot of that for me.
I think that’s a totally fair assessment. There’s lots of negativity out there around Wilco/Tweedy’s evolution, but I totally respect when someone says, “I tried it and it’s not for me”. I figure no matter your tastes, if you like some of Tweedy’s style, you’ve got a lot material to enjoy: Like the Americana stuff? You’ve got three Wilco albums, three Mermaids, three Golden Smogs, and four Uncle Tupelo’s to pick through Like the experimental stuff? The next two Wilco albums plus two Loose Fur albums, a soundtrack, a Minus 5 album and contributions to a Jim O’Rourke album Like the six piece Wilco? Three more albums, a double live, and a live DVD Like new Tweedy? Three more Wilco albums plus five solo discs and an album he wrote for Mavis! So even if one or more Tweedy eras aren’t to someone’s taste, there’s still a lot to enjoy!
Thanksgiving (for Americans) Sidebar: Jeff Tweedy on songwriting: 'Find five minutes – it doesn’t take that long!' I gotta say there’s something glaringly absent in the “Can’t Stand It” account.
I'm waiting for the price to go down. It is really slim (more a pamphlet than a book) and really expensive right now.
I really miss going into local or used book stores. It's half off on Amazon right now. I know that's a whole dilemma in itself. I like to support local or directly to the band, but it's easy to see why s0 many people buy from Amazon. It's $23 at the Wilco store and $11 on Amazon. I'd be interested to read it. I completely relate to that quote where he said he likes to have a deadline. I become much more creative when any project has an end goal and time constraint. If you buy books online, this a cool site that supports local bookstores. About BookShop
I’m not really feeling “One and a Half Stars”. Jeff sings it in that sleepy manner of his and I literally dozed off by the time it ended. Maybe it was the food. The track is sort of hypnotic and I haven’t taken the time to look at the lyrics, so perhaps there is more substance to this one than is apparent from a single listen. Today isn’t the day for serious, focused listening for me. Anyway, this one fails to make any sort of positive impression.
This thread has been something good about 2020. Thanks PW and everyone else who has contributed! I can relate to the lyric about being in bed all day as I have had depression at points in my life as well as migraines. I never noticed the kind of glitchy drum sound on this track before - sort of interesting. I am picking up on what @Fortuleo said - we are gaining momentum as we go along through these first three tracks.
Thanks for the tip on the Amazon deal! I went ahead and bought a copy. I buy almost all of my Wilco stuff from Wilco World to support them the best I can, but this deal was too good to pass up. I think $11 is a fairer price for the book anyway and that should have just been the list price. Quiet Amplifier In an interview with Vulture, Jeff cited 'Quiet Amplifier' as his favorite song on the album. He said, "It’s always the song I’m working on that’s my favorite. As far as evaluating older songs and songs that I’ve already written, I’m not the best at it. [But off the new album] I’ll say “Quiet Amplifier,” because I think it’s a really successful experiment. That song became the overall template for the record in terms of a cohesive sonic landscape. I think everything else is kind of contained in that song. The drum sound and melodic sensibility — there’s a restraint to it, but it also seems sort of violent in some weird way." I agree with him that this is a great one. For fans of experimental Wilco from the early 2000s, I feel like this song might scratch the itch. This could honestly slot in on A Ghost is Born pretty well. Like several of the other songs on the album, the track builds in momentum and intensity throughout the runtime but it does so in such a subtle way that you may not even notice it at first. However, the volume and power at the end of the song is pretty far away from the gentle opener. Built on a bed of slushy, pounding drums and a rich tapestry of keys and guitars all locked together, 'Quiet Amplifier' has a very full arrangement that works perfectly in contrast with Jeff's quiet vocal (which, again, builds in intensity as the song does). Nels gets to contribute some beautiful colors here and the fade out is chaotic, feedbacky beautiful bliss. 'Quiet Amplifier' has one of my favorite arrangements on this album and I like what Jeff said about it contrasting restraint with violence. Lyrically, it has some really great lines. "Home, ain't no trains gonna come" seems an oblique reference to his father. "I tried, in my way, to love everyone" has always felt like a Jeff Tweedy update on the classic Leonard Cohen lyric 'I have tried in my way to be free' from 'Bird on the Wire.' This song is fantastic and perfectly sequenced on the album into the next song--this restrained, stormy eeriness breaks open like clouds parting to reveal the opening strums of 'Everyone Hides.' This is a fantastic song.
Perfectly said by Jeff and Joni (can I call you Joni ? you can call me Leo ). This is where the album shifts once and for all into full gear. The beat accelerates dramatically, the band comes in from everywhere, there’s something ominous in the drum&bass pattern, underneath the gentle but strangely menacing acoustic fingerpicking. It’s like a telluric drone threatening to shatter the earth, like an earthquake is coming… It builds and builds and builds into a restrained chaos, and then comes the release, the clearing of the sky, the calm after the storm. There’s something biblical in the way this record unfolds. Wilco had to recreate itself, it had to come back from the dead or from limbo, and Quiet Amplifier is the song where it all comes together. As we discussed, the first three songs are a slow step by step awakening. On those three songs, Jeff (voice & guitar) was the same as on his WARM albums. But behind him, under him, the band was gradually coming to life. On Quiet Amplifier, they complete their rebirth, they progressively take control and it’s like Jeff himself acknowledges their presence, by slowly getting out of his torpor in the way he sings. At the end of this song, they’re on the same page, restored as a band, and the rest of the album will tell another story. As I said yesterday, I can understand how some fans could think “oh, come on, Jeff, not another sleepy dirge” during the first tracks, but they were wrong : it was him devising the return of his band around him, allowing it, asking for it and making it happen right in front of us. I really wonder if he sequenced the LP after recording the songs or if he recorded (and wrote) them that way, in order, one after the other, setting up the second coming of this magnificent, extraordinary band.
"Quiet Amplifier"- We are marching right along with this next song. I love the crunch of the drums that sound like they are coming to get us. Nice call by @Parachute Woman saying that it could slot right in on A Ghost Is Born. It has all those guitars and effects bubbling under the surface that give it that feel. There is a lot going on in this song all perfectly mixed together to create a really cool background with once again the drums being the center of attention. The ending of the song sounds like something that could have come from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Wilco still challenging the listener with a song that gets better the more closely you pay attention to it. I can't imagine fans of experimental Wilco not loving this song. 5/5
So much going on in this song. I love the way it builds and the swirl of guitars. The "I tried in my way to love everyone" lyric. The contraption that Glenn built to get that marching sound is interesting. I can't remember where I saw it talked about, but if find it I will post it. I really wanted to see this one live, but according to setlist.fm they have never played it.
@Zeki, (not sure why I'm tagging when the reply alerts you, anyway) are you referring to Jay Bennett? Interesting if that's the omission.
I really, really like "Quiet Amplifier." This is my opening to say the mild guitar conflagration that occurs in this song reminds me of the VU.
Yes. Someone who isn’t aware would think, based on Tweedy’s new book, that Jeff wrote that song by himself. The Kot book actually has a rather long Bennett passage about “Can’t Stand It” that is peppered with “we” (not “I”). And, based on Kot’s account, it’s highly doubtful that Tweedy wrote a good bit of that on the plane. And then Jeff reworked it with the producer. As Jay says, “ (David Kahne) creates the hook with the response vocal. It took what Jeff and I did, and improved it. It is better than the original in all ways: melody, fidelity, arrangement. Jeff felt the same way, otherwise it never would’ve gotten on the record.” (p. 165-166)
Others have already spoken eloquently about Quiet Amplifier. It starts in a very similar way to the previous tracks with the basic drums over a bunch of stuff, but then starts building slowly and ends up in crescendo and denouement. Is it a song of lost love and desperation ? Anyway, I like it a lot.
Ghost is my favourite Wilco album by a landslide, so it’s no surprise that I love Quiet Amplifier. What does worry me is that songs like this now pop up as one-offs... You Satellite and Diamond Light as examples. However, Diamond Light on Sukierae always feels like the song I should like but don’t really. The band is so much better at building the sonic landscape than Jeff and Spencer. (Although I give credit to Warmer for exploring a few more sonic textures than Tweedy solo normally does). Back to QA, though... please, sir, can I have some more?
BMI: I just checked on November 3rd and he had 414. So in 3 weeks here’s another 23! SONGWRITER/COMPOSER TWEEDY JEFFREY SCOT CURRENT AFFILIATION: BMI CAE/IPI #: 233292781 There are 437 Work Titles
