Loving Wilco

If you were to meet me, you would roll your eyes and think, “Of course she loves Wilco.” In fact, if you read my blog, you’re probably rolling your eyes and thinking, “Of course she loves Wilco.” What pomo, boho, oblong-dark-glasses-and-leather-jacket-wearing, over-educated, thirty/fortysomething parent whose little kids dance around the living room to X and Pete Seeger doesn’t love Wilco? I mean DUH, as M has begun to say, all too frequently.

But you know, there’s a reason we love Wilco. Jeff Tweedy speaks for us. He misses the innocence we’ve known, playing Kiss covers, beautiful and stoned; he wonders what we were thinking when we said it didn’t hurt; he knows everyone is a burning sun; he still loves rock and roll. Wilco embodies the intersections of melody and noise that have defined us, sonically and symbolically. Or, to put it less pretentiously, with Wilco I can have my pretty music and meaningful lyrics, S can have his guitar solos and wild experimentation, and we can both rock out, which makes for one happy pomo, boho, oblong-dark-glasses-and-leather-jackets-wearing, over-educated thirty/fortysomething couple out on a date.

The first time I saw Wilco was right after Mermaid Avenue came out. I grew up listening to Woody Guthrie and in college I was madly in love with Billy Bragg, so Wilco had just about nothing to do with my initial interest in Mermaid Avenue. But by the time they came to Red State Capital City to headline a free outdoor music festival, I was a fan. S had to work, as usual, so I took two-year-old M down to the big park by the river, and the sun went down, and we snuggled on a bench and watched the big kids run around with glow sticks, and she got her first glow necklace, and Wilco sang “California Stars,” and she danced like a little rock-and-roll fairy, and life could not have been any better.

The second time I saw Wilco was right after Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out. Still the huge Mermaid Avenue fan that I remain, I hadn’t really listened to the new album, and what I’d heard out of the corner of my ear sounded a lot like noise and not much like “California Stars.” But it was Wilco, and this time S didn’t have to work, so off we went to the big new club downtown that was essentially an airplane hangar full of college students. For the first few songs there was noise and nothing was from Mermaid Avenue and I was skeptical. Then, and I don’t quite know how to describe it, all the pretense and artsiness dropped away and they just, well, they just were rocking out up there on the stage, and rocking the entire airplane hangar full of college students along with them, and every guitar lick and drum solo and lyric was exactly right, and we rocked out along with them, and life couldn’t have been any better.

This week I saw Wilco at the old auditorium at Red State University where we took the girls to see Dan Zanes and J and I saw 4:48 Psychosis with the audience and performers all up on the stage. I was exhausted from working late the night before, S was tired from work that day, J was anxious and upset because her mother is in the hospital again, and the world didn’t all become right just because Wilco was playing in Red State Capital City that night. But bees, butterflies, flowers, and skyscrapers stretched and imploded on the screen behind the band. Jeff, a bit pudgier post-rehab, jogged in place, railed against Dick Cheney, sang about love, and meant it all. Nels Cline, the crazy new guitarist, went crazy on his guitar. The melodies were melodic and the noise was noisy and when they rocked, they rocked, and for just a few hours on a tired, gray February day in George Bush’s America, everything was that much better.

[I wanted to say that on a tired, gray February day in George Bush’s America, there was truth and beauty, but that just seemed too cheesy. Except that’s really how it was.]