By Jeff Tweedy

Roughly 99 percent of this book’s audience will be brought to it via Wilco and/or Uncle Tupelo, but the surprise awaiting any reader is that Jeff Tweedy’s memoir is so multifaceted. Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) is a mercilessly self-deprecating rundown through the trials and tribulations of two great American bands, an unglamorous look at addiction, a portrait of a musical family, and a window into the creative process behind an ever-growing catalog of classics. When Tweedy gets into the nuts and bolts of his songwriting, his words light up the page. “You allow [your subconscious] to come up with ideas and phrases that don’t need to make sense to your rational mind right away,” he writes. Later, Tweedy suggests that his main “superpower” is his comfort with vulnerability. “If you feel exposed when you’re singing to someone,” he says of trying out early compositions on his mother, “That means you’re doing something right.” The same notion could apply to this book. –Ryan H. Walsh, author of Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968