Let's Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording With Wilco, Etc., (2018)

World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music (2023)

Cousin. Album by Wilco, 2023.

Starship Casual
Jeff Tweedy's Substack

For me to go out on a winter Saturday night to see a concert has become a rare thing, but we did go to see Wilco at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn in February 2016. What I remember of it was that the band was great, played the whole Star Wars album, including my fave songs from from that era, "Random Name Generator," and "The Joke Explained." "RNG" was one of this rock band's few actual high energy-by-definition "rock 'n' roll" performances; "The Joke Explained" is like a reverse engineered Dylan song. But according to Setlist FM they did not play the rocking encore I hoped for, "Standing O," from The Whole Love (2011). It is my go to Wilco song when I need a lift. The arteries of the song course with adrenaline, but its mind is sad:

I turn my mood on a dime
I'm finally off of my back
I come from a long, long line
I mope and I cry and attack...

No standing o, o

And there was a detachment between the band and the audience that made me feel awkward. Everyone was on their phones, or taking pictures with their phones, or selfies with their phones. There wasn't the bond between band and audience that would make a young concert-goer, perhaps just starting to learn guitar, to be inspired the way Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy was by his forebears, seeing the Replacements, for example, as a 14-year-old in a St. Louis club near his home in Belleville, Ill.

Wilco is considered the great Chicago band of our era, owners of The Loft, the musical magnetic North Pole of the midwest. Their masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, was recorded there. Released free on the Wilco website in 2001, while the band extricated itself from Warner's Reprise label, only for the album to surface and thrive on Warner's smaller, curiously curatorial Nonesuch label under the guidance of then-president (and now chairman emeritus) Robert Hurwitz. Pitchfork, then still Chicago-based, gave it a 10 out of 10.

"He wasn't raised in Chicago, like Billy Corgan or Dennis DeYoung," said our savvy midwestern correspondent and former Sun-Times music journalist Don McCleese. "He didn't move there until after Uncle Tupelo. But Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and everything since is definitely part of the Chicago musical mythos. He has a Chicago work ethic and a very Chicago wife, so I'd say their sons are Chicago purebred."
etc.
https://waynerobins.substack.com/p/wilcos-jeff-tweedy-author-auteur

Jeff Tweedy is the best. I will read or listen to everything he writes! So great. I love these memoirs through song that he's been doing. Can't wait for his next!

A quick and enjoyable 50 essays about some of Tweedy’s favorite music. It is nice to hear his voice as the reader and he has deep and interesting thoughts on music, which is not a surprise. I wasn’t familiar with all of the music, so I have some new songs to listen to as well.

Tweedy alternates between funny personal anecdotes and more profound analytic dissection of music. They both work, and they keep the book from feeling either too light or too serious. My only complaint is that I wish it was longer.

I haven't read Jeff Tweedy's previous books, so I am not sure if this is stylistically comparable. I struggled with it feeling like stream of consciousness writing, but I also appreciated the connections and memories associated with these songs for him despite not knowing most of the referenced songs.

World Within a Song will be published on November 7, 2023. Penguin Group has provided an early galley for review.

Looking back, I was on the groundfloor when Tweedy's band Wilco released their first album in the mid-90's. I really enjoyed those early releases. So, given this book's author and subject, I was definitely interested in hearing him tell about some of the many songs that inspire him.

The approach of using songs to reflect on events in one's life is logical; music often triggers memories of where and when you were at a time that song was playing. Some of Tweedy's choices are integral to the moment while others come across as very tangential. With fifty chapters, averaging one to two pages, each is a quick moment in time recollection. Still, each one reveals a bit more about this musician, his life and how he got to where he is today.

Fans of Jeff Tweedy will likely get the most out of this book.

I LOVED this book? Jeff Tweedy writes about the songs that shaped him. It's so interesting hearing a brilliants songwriter's opinions on what he views as the great songs. Equally good, is sprinkled throughout the book are funny little stories from his life. In some ways, I enjoyed these anecdotes even more than Tweedy's autobiography (which I really liked). While the memoir captures the landmark events of his life, this book has the funny little moments that are the incidents that give color to one's life.

A really enjoyable book. I'm enjoying Tweedy's foray into becoming a man of letters.

I received a free e-galley of the book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.

An enjoyable book. It is like sitting down with an old friend to just chat about tunes that have been meaningful to them. I was surprised by some of the selections and found myself learning about songs I had never heard. There is a lot to enjoy here for any music-obsessed reader.

My thanks to NetGalley and Dutton for an e-book Advanced Reading Copy.
There seems to be a fair number of "music that influenced my life" titles put there in the past few years by musicians.
I really enjoyed this - 50 songs, very short chapters on each, and after every couple of pieces on songs Tweedy shares some lesser, or non-, musical events in his life. Epiphanies of sorts. In chronological order of his own life, most of the book is given over to his youth and St Louis days. As he moves toward Chicago, and being older, he admits it becomes tougher to select/find songs that have influenced his life.
The over-all message is, “Listen to everything, and don’t judge – like what you like.” Oh well, except for a couple songs here. There is music he hated when younger that he now loves (ABBA). It appears he has never thrown away a single piece of music/media that has ever come his way. Including the LP collections from his older siblings, mostly made up of budget bin cut-outs and Columbia Music Club purchases, bequeathed to him at the age of about 9.
Most of the songs and bands will be familiar to most anyone ("Smoke On the Water"!), but there are also enough obscure bands/musicians, or lesser known works by better known bands, to keep you going to the Internet to find what they sound like.
I made a list, but the one I did pursue immediately was Chicago artist Diane Rizzo and her "Love Like a Wire". She passed from cancer at age 43. She never recorded the song, other than as a demo. Her husband was putting together a tribute album to her, when he passed as well! There are a number of versions of the song up on the Internet, by Tweedy and Tweedy (the band). A nice one of just Jeff (looks like he is in his pajama bottoms!) and Spencer, on the couch at home, filmed by Suzie. Spencer sings background, and plays the "drums"(slaps his legs with his hands). She only released one album, “8 Songs”.
The short pieces between chapters cover everything from the tour bus driver from hell, playing for 5 people in Houston at 2 AM (scheduled for 10 PM), and a wonderful homemade glass piece given to him by a fan. It sits on his amp every night.
LOADS of information about Jeff's Bellevue, IL days as a child, as an adolescent who did not fit in - and the importance of his mother. And his father - who could be rough, and liked his beer (appeared at Jeff and Suzie’s wedding with his own cooler, even though it was at Lounge Axe, and they had explained to him that they had a liquor license, and there would be enough booze there already....), but whom you can tell Jeff still loves and appreciates.
I do have to say that if you are not a Wilco/Tweedy fan, this book is unlikely to interest you. But for a fan, lots of background to Jeff, and to Jeff as a musician. It may be about songs that have had a personal effect on him, but that includes songs he appreciates musically as well - and he explains why. And so we get a deeper understanding of his own song writing process. And his life long love of music, of all sorts.
4.5 out of 5.
Book release November 7, 2023.