Putting the Wilco leaders new book about songwriting to the test with the man himself.
How Everything Works
The ins and outs of making great entertainment.
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He agreed to try, so long as I covered my face and kept my space.
How about, Feed my misery?
I laugh, too.
If hes miserable, I get it.
That just came out, because, well … Tweedy trails off behind a wry grin.
When its done, he laughs again but this time expressing genuine delight, stunned his quip might work.
Thats a good placeholder if nothing else, he says.
But I feel like werereallyclose.
(The Lofts Topo Chico refrigerator and Tweedys matching socks remain peculiar thrills.)
Greenberg guffaws when we tell him that weve already got bits of two verses and a chorus.
Throw a goddamn middle eight in, and youredone!
Also, 15-minute warning.
Tweedy suddenly gets very serious.
And this is his happy place.
Greenberg, Schick, and Tweedys oldest son,24-year-old Spencer, gather around and nod along.
That was fun, Tweedy says, smiling, when hes done and leans the guitar against the couch.
Any residual misery has evaporated in our accomplishment.
There are some lyrics in there I really like the snow waking up, walking off the trees.
I remind him that Ive read his book, where everythings a legit song.
His laughter booms: No, but thats anespeciallylegit song.
It was the lowest point of Tweedys life, he admits.
Instead, he discovered revisiting them that theyd initiated his recovery.
Those songs ended up being notes to myself, about how to reconstruct the better parts of me.
During the last decade, Tweedys better parts have reshaped his public image.
There are ways I like to think about myself, childlike things: I want to be a songwriter.
I want to be a nice person, a good person, Tweedy says.
Like, if you want to think of yourself as a songwriter,write songs.
His old friend has shed the grouchy character.
Then, he pauses.
You would have come here, and I would have sat and written a song in front of you.
I wouldnt have been as aware of my surroundings and that the task was about collaboration.
Its impossible not to believe Tweedyowes at least some of his transformation to this one near-daily activity: songwriting.
Ideally, you would just let it flow out of you, he says.
But its hard not to make some judgement, because I know what words I wouldnt want to sing.
If an avocado is sitting there, Im not going to put it down.
I cant imagine myself singing about an avocado.
Tweedy welcomes the grammatical ambiguity of some selections, or how several of the nouns also function as verbs.
I read him my associative free verse I pop in the chromosome/ sweating into a blanket, it begins.
He follows with a more deliberate creation, its longer lines zigging in and zagging out of rhymes.
Chlorophyll is walking off the trees, he reads flatly.
Listen how a broken hip speaks.
We discuss some bits we like and laugh at our attempts to shoehorn guacamole into verse.
Tweedy stops smiling, though, the instant I lampoon my own poem, sarcastically calling it a masterpiece.
This is to remind myself what the possibilities are in language, to disorient myself.
You should aspire to make a connection.
Id hear that and go, Did he just say what I think he said?
Theres all this heroic language just to walk right back down, he says, chuckling.
Now you just know the way.
He flubs a line and apologizes; Greenberg jokes about hiding the mistake with pedal steel.
I head for my RV, relieved to find no parking ticket.
But others had unintentionally mined one ofmydeepest worries.
Mountainwas the first word on my list, the object that flowed out fastest.
Ive found myself humming the bit ever since like a little mantra I helped make.
I tell Tweedy on Election Day about my breakthrough.He knows the feeling well.
He arrives at similar clarity through writing.
