Wilco: Album by Album

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

  1. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    One by One


    'One by One' is a song all about aging and watching your life slip away, but apparently Woody Guthrie was only 27 years old when he wrote it. While I find the lyric a little bit repetitive (Jeff even said after he played it live that it was one that kept you on your toes because every single line starts with 'one by one'), I think the band found a good sound for this song. This is a full-on Wilco track. Billy Bragg does not appear. Bob Egan does though. I believe this is his final appearance on a Wilco track? The arrangement is heavy on the drums and weeping pedal steel guitar and the song actually fades in, catching the band mid-performance. This is one I feel like I should like more than I actually do. It's a nice melody and Jeff's vocal performance is sensitive and vulnerable. I like the arrangement and the sound of the band working together. But I've just never been very moved by this track. It's a good album cut for me.
     
  2. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Also today we can discuss this track from Billy:

    Eisler on the Go


    This track features Billy on National guitar and banjo, Ken Coomer on percussion and Jay Bennett on piano, 'melodies' and percussion. It is about Austrian composer Hanns Eisler who was blacklisted in America during the Red Scare. I think it's actually a really beautiful, sad song. Bragg took a set of words that could easily have lent themselves to an angry piece of music and instead went an entirely different direction and wrote this gorgeous lament. 'I don't know what I'll do...' There is this profound sense of helplessness in the face of the crushing power of the government and this hysteria. The banjo adds a unique touch and I don't know what Jay is using to create the 'melodies' in the background (what instrument is that?) but it is achingly lovely. What an empathetic piece of music.
     
  3. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Quick note: Jay plays the ‘melodica.’ From wiki:
    Description
    The melodica is a free-reed instrument similar to the pump organ and harmonica. It has a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. Pressing a key opens a hole, allowing air to flow through a reed.
     
  4. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    One By One. An all-Jeff song, he has me hanging onto every Woody Guthrie-penned word. I think it’s brilliant. Absolutely love it.
     
  5. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Thank you! I got my info from Wilcopedia and I just went back and rechecked it to make sure I wasn't crazy. I wasn't. Jay is credited with contributing "melodies" rather than "melodica" to this track! Thank you for giving the correct info.
     
  6. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    I didn’t know this. Thank you for researching. Yes, I think you’re right about the ‘profound helplessness.’

    There’s a few odd lines: sister in the tickly bush...daddy on the henhouse roof...Rankin? Maybe a name I should know but doesn’t immediately come to mind.
     
  7. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    :) I have the cd booklet out on my side table so it’s not like I’m an instrument whiz! I bet that was an autocorrect for whomever wrote up the wiki piece.
     
  8. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    I love that instrument - sounds a bit like a flute or clarinet. I used to play it in my college band along with keyboards. It's very easy to play and it's the type of thing you can take around anywhere - it's light weight and not longer than a flute or clarinet. I forget how many keys it has - I had borrowed it from a band mate so I haven't seen one in years. A lot of rockers could have more woodwinds sounds if it was used more since anyone can play around with it and get something nice sounding.
     
  9. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    I love everything about this song. The fade in and the fade out, like the song itself was a passing thing, that came into view for us to enjoy, then left us wondering what just happened exactly and longing for it to return. I love the melody, the mid 60's Dylan instrumentation, the low tone of Jeff's voice, everything is absolutely flawless. But what's blowing my mind (as often with Jeff, but rarely as strongly as on this particular song) is Tweedy's phrasing, the way he manages to reinvent the delivery, pacing, dramatic tension and poetic meaning of every single verse by micro variations of breathing and flow, giving power to the way Guthrie cleverly changes the number of syllabes in some lines. This is one of the key tricks in folk and modern music, of course and Dylan is one of the great masters for that. But Dylan seems to do it based on feeling, changing it every single time he performs any given song. With Jeff, it comes across as more deliberate, almost as if it's part of the songwriting process itself, how he really makes the music and the words blend and flow together as one. And I'm pretty certain he really started mastering it when working on some of those Guthrie lyrics with no choruses, like this wonderful song or, even more so, on the arresting 'Remember the Mountain Bed'.
     
  10. Al Gator

    Al Gator You can call me Al

    I also really like One by One. Given the relatively repetitive nature of they lyrics I think Jeff and Wilco keep it surprisingly interesting musically. Eisler on the Go is one of Billy Bragg's patented gorgeous acoustic tracks which work so well on this album. Both these tracks have such a feeling of vulnerability and they go well together.
     
  11. msza

    msza Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia, USA
    One By One
    One of my favorite songs Wilco has ever done. I think it's brilliant, though I prefer the Kicking Television version.

    I love how every line starts with "one by one," and especially how they turn one of the verses into a bridge that maintains the same lyrical pattern.

    Eisler on the Go
    Another strong acoustic track from Billy Bragg. The key to these three tracks (Eisler, Birds and Ships, Ingrid Bergman) is the brevity. They are all about 2 minutes flat. Credit that to Billy's punk background.
     
  12. rancher

    rancher Unmade Bed

    Location:
    Ohio
    Eisler on the Go is a strong effort by Bragg here, though I listen to the Mermaid albums for Wilco

    One by One - a lot of you have beat me to it here. Just a great song! One of my Mermaid favorites for many of the reasons expressed above
     
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  13. chickendinna

    chickendinna Homegrown’s All Right With Me

    One By One may be my favorite song on the album. To me, the live versions are the definitive ones. The beauty of the song shines more in a live setting.
     
  14. Gabe Walters

    Gabe Walters Forum Resident

    "One by One" - love it. The current incarnation of the band does this one very well.

    "Eisler on the Go" -- from Billy Bragg's liner notes: "[On Mermaid Avenue, Guthrie] daydreamed about making love to Ingrid Bergman on the slopes of an Italian volcano and wondered to himself what he would do if, like fellow left-wing songwriter Hanns Eisler, he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities."

    Rankin was the House member who helped establish HUAC. Look him up on Wikipedia. Real winner.
     
  15. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    "One by One"- It's never been a song I would classify as a favorite, but it's beautiful song with simple and effective lyrics. The music has a dream like quality that makes you want to float away. 4/5

    "Eisler on the Go"- After "Birds and Ships" this is my least favorite on the album. That says more about the strength of this album than the weakness of this song. It sounds like Volume 3 material to me. 3/5
     
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  16. robcar

    robcar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    "One By One" is another of my favorites on Mermaid Avenue. In fact, it might just be my absolute favorite. I'm not usually a fan of songs that fade in, and I don't know that this one needed to, but, despite that, I find this combination of lyrics and music to be incredibly moving. The pedal steel is key on this one. A real highlight in Wilco's catalog.

    "Eisler On The Go" has never done much for me. It's fine, but it lacks the sort of universal emotional resonance that would make it meaningful to me at this distant remove from the time and people involved. It's sensitively performed with the perfect musical backing for the plaintive cry of the lyrics.
     
  17. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    I was familiar with "One by One" from the live recordings for several years before I got around to hearing Mermaid Avenue, and in the meantime I assumed that it was a regular Wilco song, like a B-side, or maybe from Loose Fur or something. Of all the songs on this album, it sounds the most like one of Jeff's own compositions, both the words and music. The structure, the repeating "one by one" device, the phrasing, it's all quintessential Tweedy. Wilco has continued to move towards this kind of song more often, since Sky Blue Sky, too. Just now, I had to check to make sure that Jeff didn't include "One by One" on his Together at Last project. It easily could've fit right in with the rest of the songs on Warm/Warmer and Ode to Joy, as well.
     
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  18. robcar

    robcar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
  19. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

  20. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

  21. jalexander

    jalexander Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    The little kids ones are 26 keys with buttons for keys. I have a more “professional” one that has a proper keyboard and 37 keys. It also has a tube you can attach in place of the mouthpiece. That way you can play it on a tabletop with the tube running up to your mouth... and look absolutely ridiculous! Fun instrument and a favourite of Damon Albarn and New Order.

    As for today’s songs, both are great. The pedal steel makes One by One (something they’ve never replicated live), and I love Bragg’s quieter folk tunes.
     
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  22. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    That's a little bit like the old vocoder talk box thing like Peter Frampton had where you have a tube going into your mouth right? I never used the tube - yes Damon Albarn plays it - didn't know about New Order using it.
     
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  23. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Mikael plays a melodica through this entire KEXP concert from Wilco:

     
  24. jalexander

    jalexander Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    New Order’s less folky approach to the melodica:
     
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  25. John C Bradley Jr

    John C Bradley Jr Forum Resident

    Location:
    Columbia, SC
    "One by One" is one of the songs that really drew me into Wilco the first time I saw them. I'd never heard this song before seeing it played live on the show I saw for A Ghost is Born. They were playing behind a video screen and the song was accompanied by depression era images (I guess of Chicago). It was a really powerful presentation and one of the handful of songs that made a huge impression on me. I had to search to find what album this was on (I had no idea) and this song (and "California Stars") lead me to Mermaid Avenue. I'd say with certainty that this is one of my top 5 Wilco songs.
     
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