Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

I'm not a dad, but felt like one tonight while playing this record.

heard Kamera in a potbelly today

Has anybody an idea what Yankee Hotel Foxtrot stands for? My theory goes as follows. They are using the spelling alphabet in the title so those three words spell YHF. YHF stands for "You Have Failed". The reason being that Reprise refused to release the album and Wilco had to stream it on their website for free before they signed with Nonesuch.

nice theory, but wasn't the title in place before the label kicked it back to them?

They'd have had to change the end of Poor Places pretty quickly!

Check out the latest video from "everybody hides" for a nice YHF cover reference.

That's a pretty cute video. They should get a kickback from the Chicago tourism board.

i think it just sounds cool

re: the title

i always just assumed it was a reference to the static chatter one can hear when tuned into cb / ham radiowaves. isn't the entirety of the lyrics to 'poor places' just excerpts from random radio conversations?

That's what I always figured. I know Tweedy reading books about WWII (I?) was a big influence on the album, iirc.

Isn't the title just taken from one of the numbers stations recordings that got used?

That's what I always thought? Surprised to hear there was any other consideration to the title/meaning.

tweedy's lyrics really haven't aged well have they

Had the realization over the weekend that YHF is actually my least favorite of the Wilco albums from the 00s. Sky Blue Sky is the best.

""Yankee, hotel, foxtrot" can be heard in a woman's voice on YHF's penultimate track, "Poor Places." It was sampled from the fourth track on "The Conet Project," a collection of recordings from so-called numbers stations.

Numbers stations are generally understood to be used by intelligence agencies to transmit coded messages across long distances. As he discusses in "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," the documentary about the album's creation, Jeff Tweedy had heard "The Conet Project" in the run-up to recording "YHF" and was fascinated by it.

Including the "Conet" sample on the record wound up costing Wilco -- Irdial Records, which released it, sued for copyright infringement. The case was settled out of court."

all that does not explain what YHF is supposed to stand for originally. what is the transmitted coded message behind? if it comes from an intelligence agency it could of course also mean nothing at all, just be noise to confuse the enemy. i prefer my theory though there may be time issues with it. maybe the meaning was subconscious.

If it was part of a coded message, who knows what it may have meant?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTiQkXPtq1g

deciphering does not get easier when the message is repeated on and on and on. or does the number of repititions mean something? or is that just a loop? i cannot detect any variation in her pronunciation, stressing of syllables or voice volume.

https://www.answers.com/Q/Alpha_mike_foxtrot

this takes care of that rarities box anyway I guess

yhf =

yahoo! high five!

yikes, hit fastforward.

you highfalutin fucker.

yoooo, how fortuitous.

Man a bunch of bands sampled that Conet Project CD over the years, I wonder if they went after any of the others.

The 'Engineer's' demo of Poor Places is great, a little spookier because of a bunch of numbers stations woven throughout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1FRg3CN7yM

Man, this needs an expanded reissue with all the discarded tracks, demos, etc. There's basically an entire extra album of early versions and radically different takes that's just as good.

Didn't they more or less do that already?

Among my favorite memories of this era was seeing a few (intense!) shows before the album was officially released and watching everyone singing along with the new stuff they'd already all heard.

Had the realization over the weekend that YHF is actually my least favorite of the Wilco albums from the 00s. Sky Blue Sky is the best.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Thursday, September 19, 2019 11:31 AM

hmm, interesting thought — even though i'd agree sky blue rates very high. i definitely think yhf is better than wilco the album tho.

overall, i'd have a tough time picking between sky blue, ghost is born, and the whole love.

Oh yeah, that's true. I was thinking Wilco The Album was 2010, but it's 09.

don't mean to bash wilco the album tho — it's p solid, e.g. 'bull black nova', 'everylasting everything', etc.

Jeff Tweedy's lyrics on this are NOT terrible.... they are beautiful, more clever than he ever was before

yeah - probably very uncool to say this but to me YHF towers easily above the rest of his oeuvre, esp lyrically.

he has some great moments on Summerteeth and AGIB but YHF is back to back awesome lyrically

"Heavy Metal Drummer" just showed up on a playlist. I've never heard this before. This ... sounds like Pavement? Was Wilco supposed to be a band that sounded like Pavement? I have never heard them identified as such. Obviously I mean "relaxed Gold Soundz / much of Brighten the Corners" type Pavement" not "Debris Slide pavement"

I don't really mean the production, just mostly, the way the vocal line sounds and the way the words fit into the lines?

it sounds a lot like cut your hair yeah

Right, it sounds like Cut Your Hair covered in the style of Range Life

It's kind of funny to me that you're enough of an indie fan to know the nuances of the types of Pavement songs but in all these years you've never encountered YHF? I'm not scoffing at it, but it's a little surprising- a hard album to avoid for this many years with all the worship it received in the indieverse.

We're somewhere around the 20th anniversary of when YHF was originally supposed to be released.

Yeah, it was an outlier in their catalog for sure, especially at the time. I always felt like it didn't belong on YHF, better as a B-side that becomes a live favorite or something.

It's kind of funny to me that you're enough of an indie fan to know the nuances of the types of Pavement songs but in all these years you've never encountered YHF? I'm not scoffing at it, but it's a little surprising- a hard album to avoid for this many years with all the worship it received in the indieverse.

Indie is a big tent, I listened to a ton of Pavement and Belle and Sebastian and Mountain Goats in the 90s but have never listened to a Wilco or Radiohead or Neutral Milk Hotel album all the way through and couldn't hum a song by any of them except "Creep"

I'm a Pave head but have never heard this song (to my knowledge). I don't think it sounds too much like Pvmt, tbh, though I guess I hear what folks are saying.

"Can't Stand It" was the one on "Summerteeth" that was iirc supposed to be the big single. It wasn't, but it fits perfectly well on the record. "Heavy Metal Drummer" sticks out like it was supposed to be the big single, and while it wasn't released as a single, it still kind of sticks out. I've always found it mildly annoying but mostly innocuous (like a few of REM's similarly annoying but harmless songs), and I suppose it does well breaking the mood up a bit.

The essay (by Bill Bentley?) in the box set about the YHF period is pretty funny: The incoming head of Reprise declaring "There'll be no ugly bands on my label!" and sending the singer of his (unnamed) favored signed group to a fat farm for a makeover.

I remember that Wilco tour supporting the album (when it actually came out, not when it was in limbo). It was one of my first concerts, and it was fun singing along with "Heavy Metal Drummer" - it definitely felt like it should've been a hit single. It seemed to fit just fine at the time, and I guess in the grand scheme of things I have nothing against rock albums that throw in a track like that because there's nothing wrong with having some fun even when you're swinging for the fences. Aspiring to high art shouldn't mean humorlessness. I remember when detractors tried to knock that album for being pretentious or self-important, and it's like really? "Heavy Metal Drummer"? "I'm the Man Who Loves You"?

... starting a song and album with the words "I Am An American Aquarium Drinker"

Wilco (The Song) came on once and despite owning that (disappointing) album I spent a few seconds trying to remember which late-period Pavement song it was

Went to the 20th Anniversary show in Chicago last night. It was wonderful. Full band + 3 horns + a string quartet. Did the whole album front to back with all the interludes and studio details performed live, no commentary or talking that I recall. YHF is canon for me, and to see it played with such care and reverence was very cool. The run of "Heavy Metal Drummer" -> "I'm the Man Who Loves You" (Jeff on lead guitar) -> "Pot Kettle Black", with horns, nearly brought the house down.

After the album they played a handful of older and rarer songs, including a YHF outtake I'd never heard. Closed with "Monday" and "Outtasite (Outta Mind)" -- again, the horns really took these to another place.

yeah saw them with horns about a decade ago, I remember "Monday" and "Pieholden Suite" were both fantastic. I'm going to Solid Sound for the first time next month - I wonder if they'll do the YHF set, I haven't seen it announced anywhere...

Man, I should've caught one of the NYC shows. One of the very first rock concerts I ever saw was from their 2002 tour, so I didn't feel a need to go, but it didn't occur to me how different and more elaborate they would sound for these anniversary shows. The core band itself was smaller for those 2002 shows, and they didn't have a horn section and a string quarter joining them either.

Also, I imagine most people here saw the tracklist of the upcoming box set. Eight discs for the CD version...it's tempting, but I've barely touched the bootleg of demos and studio material that I already have.

thinking pretty hard about going to solid sound (wilco's festival in western mass.). the first night is billed as a "special set" from wilco, so i imagine that will be yankee hotel foxtrot.