Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

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I realize reading this that it's very difficult to say why one set of pseudo-random strung-together phrases works while another doesn't. YHF seems so boring lyrically, but my favorite lyricist is probably David Berman and I could see him getting similar complaints.

― Mark, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

People!

― Michael Daddino, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yikes!

― Michael Daddino, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've been thinking about the lame lyrics on YHF for a while, so I'll try to write something about them soon. just for you.
Thank you Josh. But you know Wilco is not only about the lyrics. When I like music I usually like it for the music and not for the lyrics in the beginning. I only start listening to the lyrics when I really dig the music. With Wilco I have started trying to understand what Tweedy sings about but I didn't go very far yet. My feeling is that his lyrics are rather vague and allow many different interpretations. But even if the lyrics were utter shite I would still love Wilco.

― alex in mainhattan, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Just a note, Julio:

I'm not sure that that is an anti-American lyric. He's paying homage to all the felled patriots, those who have burned up for the Flag; supposedly its a tetchy subject with Patriot Americans (the Burning of the Flag). He's taking this tetchyness, and saying Fuck You! to the burners. I'll salute the flag anyway. Even more so than that, I'm gonna come out an explicitly say it here, right now - not just think it.

It's also a kinda Wonder Years Nostalgia lyric, you can just imagine a bag full of leaves, ashed flag, jolly ranchers wrapper, lying at the bottom of Kevin's drive, Super 8 all over you *boink*.

The shopping bags ref. could also be a passing hint at American Beauty shopping bag/American Dream, dissolution of theme. Just a nod.

But I don't think it is Anti-American. It doesn't fit with what the Josh is saying, with whom I agree to an extent (though I like the album).

― david h(owie), Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Thank you David, that makes a lot of sense to me. When reading your post I immediately thought that saluting the fallen leaves in shopping bags could also mean saluting the American soldiers who died in a war (no specific one) whose corpses are then flown back to the States in these huge plastic bags. How are they called again?

― alex in mainhattan, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Alex- body bags.
Having seen American Beauty, the shopping bag lyrics just remind me of the boy's video in the movie. Regardless of whether Jeff Tweedy was just tossing together words (which personally I suspect he was), this lyric from I Am Trying to Break Your Heart makes so little sense that I love it: You're quite a quiet domino bury me now Take off your band-aid cuz I don't believe in touchdowns.

― lyra in seattle, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

My favourite line from Ashes of American Flags definitely is:

I shake like a toothache
When i hear myself sing

Tweedy can laugh about himself!

I know this is far-fetched craziness but continuing my "fallen leaves filling shopping bags" interpretation, the tree would be the United States and Tweedy sings of shopping bags as going to a war is like shopping for death. Though the American Beauty parallel is striking as well.

I think somewhere Bob Dylan said that he does not think a lot about the meaning of his lyrics when writing them. He lets the others interpret them. And there are usually millions of interpretations. That is the art of writing good lyrics or poems I guess.

― alex in mainhattan, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

david- fair enough.

But this just shows that speculation on lyrics is useless at the end of the day. I'm english and I took that from an anti-american perspective (since sept 11th, also american foreig policy and so on).

That's why i restrict myself to sound itself (and the ound of the voice and how it interacts w/sound that the group makes) and from that perspective Wilco don't do enough for me.

― julio Desouza, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ha, Julio see my blog for my Dark Night of the Lyric/Soul.

― david h(0wie), Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

(Curious, why restrict yrself?)

― david h(0wie), Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

because first of all i can't register lyrics when i am listening to a record, more the sound of the voice. So a correction, i don't restrict myself, it's just that i find it hard to listen to lyrics.

but then you're trying to interpret lyrics and most reviewers do that to interpret what the 'artist' is thinking and that can lead to all sorts of shit that i read in record reviews.

I mean: Dylan is a poet you know? and that horse shit.

― Julio Desouza, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

sorry no ? but an ! mark on the post above.

― Julio Desouza, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I like YHF pretty well, but Tweedy's lyrics sometimes make me wince. I like him best when he doesn't try so hard: "War on War" works for me because it's simple and perversely inane, "Heavy Metal Drummer" because it's not afraid to be emotionally direct. For the most part, the strained metaphors and evasive symbolism don't do much for me.

― o. nate, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

that's funny, 'heavy metal drummer' is one of the ones I want to pick on

― Josh, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

There's no such thing as "sound itself".

― Clarke B., Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

that's funny, 'heavy metal drummer' is one of the ones I want to pick on

I dunno - it makes me feel warm fuzzy feelings.

It's hard for me to explain why I like abstract metaphor and symbolism when Bob Dylan or Stephen Malkmus does it, but why I don't like it when Jeff Tweedy does it. I think it's partly in the delivery, and partly in the sense of humor - or rather Tweedy's apparent lack of same.

― o. nate, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Heavy metal drummer comes across as fake, like he never actually liked heavy metal music at all. I think he has a slight Mark Kozelek complex. And on the second(?) song he tries really hard to be Ryan Adams. The one that goes "honey, cheer up".

The "experimental" noise on this record is totally pointless, it's not integrated with the songs - just pasted at the end. I don't like the vague lyrics either, especially since I heard that they don't actually mean much. For me that is the worst type of lyrics.

― Marc, Monday, 22 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

doomie is dead right. "I am trying to break your heart" sounds like an under (over?) produced "Downs".

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

right about the sister lovers comparison I mean.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

You 'heard the lyrics don't mean much,' Marc? Do you ever decide the meaning for yourself?

― Dare, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Q:

How come Tweedy is getting shit for his supposedly oblique lyrics when mister Convolution Disquised As Depth Bob Dylan has uttraly, at certain points, been propelled by it? Nuggets of strained words free passed as "oracular wisdom"?

― david h(0wie), Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Decide my own meaning from random words? No.

― Marc, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

It was actually Jeff Tweedy himself that said the lyrics didn't mean much.

― Marc, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

And if Bob said that?

― david h(0wie), Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Decide my own meaning from random words? No.

I interpret this statement as Anti-Art.

I saw Wilco live last week. I enjoyed the record before, but more so now. It didn't feel "experimental" before, but when I saw them perform "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" I saw Wilco experimenting. There are no genuinely radical ideas, but there are no inhibitions either. It is experimental pop, exactly.

― Keiko, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I was replying to "Dare".

― Marc, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

IF the author didn't mean anything with it then it doesn't have a meaning.

― Marc, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

i agree with sean. the album really grew on me aswell. but i wouldn't say album of the year at all either. "i am trying to break your heart" is an amazing tune, and i like "heavy metal drummer" because it reminds me of pavemant.

― dyson, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I was replying to "Dare".

So?? You didn't mean it, then?

― Keiko, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

When I wrote "I was replying to Dare" I was replying to dave h(0wie) but yours came in the middle of it all. Ofcourse I mean it.

― Indieholic Anonymous, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

''It didn't feel "experimental" before, but when I saw them perform "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" I saw Wilco experimenting.''

keiko- can i ask what were they doing? how were they experimenting?

― julio Desouza, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

haha foiled by cookies

julio: it involved pipettes

― Josh, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've been thinking about the lame lyrics on YHF for a while, so I'll try to write something about them soon. just for you
I am still interested on your thoughts, Josh. But I still wouldn't dare to dsimiss the lyrics as I didn't get most of them yet. But the lines which made sense to me (see upthread) were rather brilliant. Check what Badger wrote about the album last year (including most lyrics). I can agree a lot to that. YHF is one of those few albums on which I can almost detect new sounds every new time I listen to it. And those often experimental sounds fit better and better into the context of the tunes after each subsequent listen. That is exactly what I look for in music.

― alex in mainhattan, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Sorry, here is the link to Badger's Handy (Mostly Cannibalized) Guide to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

― alex in mainhattan, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

sorry alex I was deterred by not being able to be scathing enough about it, I'll try harder.

― Josh, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

''julio: it involved pipettes''

Josh, you have done something no one has managed: I'm now interested in Wilco (not really).

― Julio Desouza, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Julio - It didn't really sound more "experimental" (except when they did the noise thing between songs), but watching them make those sounds with the precision and purpose that they did helped me realize why they were there. Before, I kind of assumed they were quirks of O'Rourke's production, studio flourishes, or, at the very most, pleasant background effects. For example, the last half of "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart", on the record, seems like a drone with odd noises thrown in. In a live setting it's more like a showcase for the chaotic percussion, noise samples, etc., things that now seem as important as the melody.

― Keiko, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

six months pass...

Okay, here's where all of us who actually liked the Wilco album now get to gloat about it's high placement in the P&J poll.

OK, gloaters, start your engines...

*insert sound of crickets chirping*

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 13 February 2003 23:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

I may be the only sap in the universe who likes the Loose Fur rec - shld I bother w/ YHF on that basis (nb I have reservations about Tweedy's lyrics on the LF disc)

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Thursday, 13 February 2003 23:20 (twenty-one years ago) link

yes please tell us why some of you enjoyed such thrash.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 13 February 2003 23:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

I haven't heard LF, so I really couldn't say how it compares to YHF. My opinion on YHF is that while it has some flaws (primarily Tweedy's affectless delivery), at it's best moments (basically everything from "Jesus Etc." through "I'm The Man Who Loves You"), it is actually a very good record, kind of like John Zorn's The Big Gundown crossed with Hotel California

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 13 February 2003 23:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

yes please tell us why some of you enjoyed such thrash.

JEFF TWEEDY SPEED METAL! Best typo ever, Julio!

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Friday, 14 February 2003 00:18 (twenty-one years ago) link

one year passes...

I'm surprised that a good amount of this thread was fairly positive.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 22 March 2004 21:10 (twenty years ago) link

I'm guessing the reaction to A Ghost Is Born will be more divisive. It doesn't sound particularly good.

― edward o (edwardo), Monday, 22 March 2004 21:14 (twenty years ago) link

I'm anxious to hear it, even though I burned out on YHF within a matter of months. Every mofo I try to download it from (with a good transfer speed) signs off before I'm even half way done.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Monday, 22 March 2004 21:19 (twenty years ago) link

A Ghost Is Born sounds even better to me.

― Andy Jay, Monday, 22 March 2004 21:23 (twenty years ago) link

one year passes...

Haha I *just* heard this record! I really like it a whole lot.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 7 November 2005 03:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Gravel Puzzleworth
PO Box 422
67 Crater Way, THE MOON

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Monday, 7 November 2005 19:28 (eighteen years ago) link

I think it's pretty good. It starts a bit meh, gets really good and then peters out towards the end. The middle three songs, "Jesus etc", "Ashes of American Flags" and "Heavy Metal Drummer" are great though.

NTI, Wilco aren't really very big in the UK.

― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 7 November 2005 19:47 (eighteen years ago) link

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