Jeff Tweedy’s debut set of original solo material reminds all of us of what’s gotten him here, and a lot of what’s gotten us here too

Kyle Crockett

December 6, 2018

For me, it was Being There. It wasn’t the first Wilco record I’d heard and it still might not be my end-all favorite, although sometimes it damn sure is. I was a sophomore in high school headed north in a hulking breaking church bus—the crimson-stain’d letters were peeling tiredly away from the van’s yellow white sheen—on a straight shot to Memphis, riding shotgun, crushing on a girl in my 5-person youth group who sat a row or two behind, and listening to our driver’s music selection. I’d turned over the reins only moments before, begrudgingly. But we were talking about Wilco because Wilco (the Album) was coming out and I was a new fan who acted like he’d listened to more than he had. So he put his favorite Wilco record into the CD player.

The screeching discord of Being There’s first minute groped at my bones and I heard for the first time what was happening in the chaos of my aching inside, manifested here on the stereo, for everyone. (Now, before you say anything, get over it. We’re all aching this much, all the time, about something.) Seconds later, a simple piano and a man named Jeff Tweedy painted my thinking and feeling heart every color.

The six and a half minutes of “Misunderstood” were my first introduction proper to the most important band and songwriter of my life. In those lines of loss, wandering, anger at the world for not getting it, condemnation of the self for taking too long to figure it out, rage at the dead ends of never figuring it out the right way, and finally thanking everyone for none of it, I felt a universe. I felt my universe. We drove on to Memphis and listened to every minute of that double album.

Tweedy has had this effect on me ever since that bus ride. Each time I listen to his music I can sense some semblance of this original feeling. It’s the feeling of knowing completely that another person sees you, which is confounding. A musician has no right to see us and we have no right to see them, much less are either of us ever even realistically able to. But the great ones do see us. Like Van Morrison’s heartbreaking Astral Weeks, there’s an empathy to Tweedy’s musical worldview—it creates a feeling like he’s actually with you, dealing just like you are. He’s been doing this with his music for thirty-five years now. It’s been true since the Uncle Tupelo numbers.

Keep reading