The first song I ever fell in love with was “Poor Places” by Wilco. I have a memory of walking my dog down Foxstone Trail in a wooded park behind my house. I couldn’t tell you how the song came on, where I was on the trail or even how old I was. The song kind of transcended that.
I was some form of adolescent then, listening mainly to music I would be ashamed to admit to today. “Poor Places” punched me wide open. It starts with beeps and some background piano, unassuming but promising something great to come. The lyrics are deep and painful. They don’t make all that much sense.
But there was nothing like it. The song ends climatically, a robotic voice repeating the album title over and over. “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot…” I thought there was some meaning there between Foxtrot and Foxstone that made me like it more.
It was a nice excuse as to why I liked this strange-to-me alt-rock so much more than any Travis Scott album I’d been listening to.
But I didn’t even know if I liked it at first. I just knew it was so much different than anything I’d ever listened to before. I queued the whole album, and when the final resonances of “Reservations” faded away, I told my mom I had just listened. My parents are avid Wilco fans, and I credit them for my love for Wilco. I’ve been to two Wilco concerts with them, both times being a good two decades younger than the median age.
There’s something special about a band that can change so much stylistically over a quarter-century and remain great. When Jay Farrar left Uncle Tupelo to form Son Volt, frontman (and genius) Jeff Tweedy and John Stirratt created Wilco. Uncle Tupelo was a swinging, drunken and authentic rock-country band, and Wilco remained so for their first couple albums. “A.M.” and “Being There” contain all my favorite country tracks. They were the first compositions for me to except from my “I like all music except for country” catchphrase.
Their first non-country record “Summerteeth” gave my 15-year-old self some songs to listen to while I thought about my forlorn love life; I still recommend new Wilco listeners start with “Can’t Stand It.”
“Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” came after that, produced from tense studio sessions that reflected the fraught artistic relationship between Tweedy and co-writer Jay Bennett. I am of the opinion that the best music always comes from emotion, and not much compares to the gut-wrenching sounds on that album.
In 2004, Wilco released “A Ghost Is Born.” It is haunting and filled with visions of death, appropriately illustrating Tweedy’s image of the afterlife: rough, ambient and better than any music that the band has ever made. Nothing compares.
