Jeff Tweedy Remains in Motion

MusicMusicA Q&A with the Wilco frontman about his solo triple album, ‘Twilight Override’; the value of labor; and the younger alt-country artists positioned to pick up the mantle he hasn’t laid down

Jeff Tweedy is probably writing or recording right now. The Wilco founder and frontman might be working on a book (he’s written three) or something for his Substack. Or he might be making an album for his band, or himself, or another artist entirely. If the title of “the hardest-working man in show business” is still vacant, he has a valid claim: In the past decade alone, Tweedy, 58, has crafted five albums (and an EP) with Wilco, five solo albums, and two documentary scores, in addition to producing, writing, and/or guesting on several other LPs. That was the same span in which he wrote those books, started that Substack, and constantly toured. 

Tweedy’s latest creation, the 30-track triple album Twilight Override, arrived on Friday. It’s the fourth album of original songs he’s released as a solo artist (not counting a 2014 double album as part of the father-son duo Tweedy), and it’s slightly longer than the previous three combined. Yet that increased quantity comes at no discernible cost to quality or catchiness. Recorded at The Loft, Wilco’s Chicago practice space and studio, with Tweedy’s sons, Spencer and Sammy, and a few friends, it’s eclectic but remarkably cohesive. Earlier this month, I talked to Tweedy about the origins of the album, the value of labor, and the younger alt-country artists positioned to pick up the mantle he hasn’t laid down.

I feel a little guilty about talking to you because having read your book about songwriting, I know that sometimes 15 minutes is enough for you to knock out a new song.

Yeah.

And here I am taking up twice that time. You could have gotten started on the next album instead.

[Laughs.] It’s possible, yeah.

But you also have a pretty expansive definition of what constitutes a song. Can a conversation be a song?

Sure. I mean, it could be turned into a song. Or if you can have a conversation you can reliably reproduce to have a similar emotional contour, then I think that’s kind of songlike.

Then maybe this interview will be the hidden track to Twilight Override, just in case people don’t feel like they got their money’s worth with the first 30.

That’s right. I’d have a top 40 hit here!

I’ll ask a couple of obligatory triple-album questions. You’ve done double albums, both with Wilco and with your son Spencer. At what point did you decide “I’m going for three”? Because you could’ve come up with 10 or 12 songs and said, “There, that’s an album.” Were you worried about flooding the market?

No. I guess I do understand that logic to some degree. But no, I always have way more songs than 10 songs, almost always. But this was conceived of as a triple album and was executed with the concept of it being a triple album. I think there are a lot of records that are really long, and then there’s a deluxe version that’s even longer. And then there’s another version that comes out a year later on Record Store Day that’s the full, expansive version. I don’t think this record says the same thing if I just whittled it down to the 10 most accessible tunes or the most immediate-sounding tunes; it really didn’t say the same thing that I wanted to say, to me.

I like a triple album because it feels like you’re setting significant time aside to go on a musical journey, and you can really wallow in it. Of course, there are some self-indulgent triple albums that could benefit from an editor or that get triple status because there’s a third disc of jams that most people don’t listen to.

Yeah, or Side 5 is one of the other songs backwards, or something like that.

But you had enough songs to start with that 30 is the edited version.

All records are just a little bit self-indulgent, to be honest. [Laughs.] Especially after you’ve been making them for 30 years. You’re just making a record and putting it out in the world. You’re kind of indulging your impulses, your creative desire to connect, all that. The other thought I had just based on what you were saying is, if you’re complaining about somebody putting out a 30-song record, things are pretty good for you. [Laughs.] I think you’re doing pretty good. You could just choose to not listen to it, or you could listen to just the songs you like. And in this day and age, that’s so easy. I mean, back when Sandinista! came out, if you had a song that’s in the middle of Side 6 that you wanted to listen to, that was an ordeal to get to it. [Laughs.]

The only reason I’d ever fault an artist for being prolific is when what they make feels unfinished, and you think, “This is just a sketch of a song or a snippet. I would’ve liked to hear it more developed or produced.” I don’t get that sense with your songs or this record. It feels finished and also, surprisingly, feels fast.

Yeah, I do think that I’ve made shorter records that take longer to listen to.

Like anyone who’s in a band and has a solo career, you’ve been asked how you know whether a song is a band song or a solo song. I wonder how that sorting process has evolved over time and how it pertains to this record.

Well, Wilco usually gets first crack at almost everything. And so Wilco songs are kind of defined by what level of excitement a tune generates in the room when we’re learning it or hearing it for the first time with everybody around. And that’s kind of unspoken. But there’s a feeling that comes with seeing or just sensing that everybody’s like, “Oh, I want to dig in on this one. I hear what I can do, or I hear how this fits into our vocabulary. Or maybe this one’s challenging. Let’s try and figure out a way to make this sound right for us.”

That makes it sound like other things on the solo records are leftovers. That’s not really the case because there might be some songs that were not right for Wilco that made it onto this record. But a lot of this material was written for this record, specifically for this, and was never presented as a thing that would make sense on a Wilco record. So there’s a certain amount of editing that goes into what I end up playing for everybody, just because, I don’t know, there’s just a feeling that comes with certain things in terms of how personal it is to put a band identity, a band name, on something, versus the directness of having your own name on something.

There’s an almost infinite number of ways you could sequence 30 songs. If my math is right, there are 265 nonillion potential track lists—that’s 265 followed by 30 zeros. Out of all the possible permutations, you picked this one. How did you decide that this was the right order?

We worked on the record for two years. You listen to it so many times in so many different permutations, and you make mock-ups of sequences and you listen to them. And over that amount of time, certain things kind of find each other and you go, “Oh, these two songs need to go together.” They sound like they’re completing one another’s thoughts. You’ve got to make note of all those different things.

That gets you pretty close, and then it’s a little bit of tweaking. But there’s also, on this record, a conceptual guiding principle. “Past, present, future” was loosely how the different albums were organized. And they’re not airtight because none of those man-made concepts are very airtight. They leak into each other. And I thought that was pretty reflective of a certain temporal reality and psychological reality.

With this many songs and one lead vocalist, it’s also nice when there’s some sonic differentiation—a change in tempo or instrumentation to cleanse the palate and perk people up.

This is one of the ways that you can tell that this record was conceived of as what it is. There are musical choices to add a certain element of surprise at the ends of songs, at the beginning of songs, to allow those transitions to feel more startling. Or there’s some kind of crazy atonal endings on songs. There’s some shocking drum fills that just kind of come out of nowhere. Those are just little details to me that make it more fun to listen to.

You’ve talked about having experienced some insecurity about your voice (which I’ve always enjoyed). But your voice is prominent in the mixes of these songs. The production is pretty unadorned and naturalistic, and everything comes through clearly, including you. Is that because you want your words to be intelligible, or have you become more comfortable over time with the way you sound?

That’s interesting. I feel like I made peace with my voice a pretty long time ago. I like my singing voice, and I feel like I’m improving over time. Even just technically, I feel good about growth, and learning things, and feeling like I can hit notes more confidently than ever, and all that. But more than anything, I just feel like I’ve learned how to use what my limitations are as ways to communicate. In other words, I know how to use my voice and feel good about that. My speaking voice is something totally different. I would be mortified to have to listen to this interview, and radio interviews and podcasts and things like that make me crazy.

The song “Parking Lot” was really out of my comfort zone. I think it was the right choice. That was just kind of shocking to me, in an uncomfortable way, to hear me just do spoken word, but I think that it’s effective. And I shouldn’t be comfortable all the time. [Laughs.]

I joked earlier about not wanting to take up your songwriting time, but you must be doing OK in that department, despite having to talk to people like me. It seems like there are at least three reasons for your productivity. One, you like making stuff, so why wouldn’t you just make more of it? Two, maybe you’re overriding your own twilight by being so productive at a stage when some might start to slow down. And three, this is your way of beating back the darkness a little bit, making the world a slightly better place by putting something good into it. What weights would you assign to those motivations?

I think that I like working. I value a work ethic. I think maybe that’s either being the son of a person that worked on the railroad for 46 years or just being solidly Midwestern or something. [Laughs.] I like going to work. My dad [went] to work someplace that most of the time he hated, but he went to work every day. And I never really understood the idea that being a musician or being an artist meant you don’t go to work every day. That wasn’t the appeal to me, ever. Like, “Oh, that’s a way to get out of work.” No, it’s a way to work at something you actually enjoy and find meaning in. And if you’re cosmically awarded with that, you should probably respect it and treat it as the gift that it is.

Aside from that, music, my own or other people’s, has been the most foolproof coping strategy of my life. And it does work wonders. It is very healing. I sit and listen to records, and I feel consoled and feel less alone. I still do. And then I make my own records and make my own songs. And I’ve gotten enough feedback over a long period of time that some of those have worked that way for other people. And so there’s this constant striving for that connection and feeling like that connection is worthwhile to strive for.

And at the very least, it’s killing time without hurting anybody. At the very highest end of my exalted thoughts about what it is that I do, I think it’s really important. I think that it’s a real connection in a world that has a lot of things encroaching upon real connections and empathy and intimacy with each other and vulnerability and things that there seems to be some short supply of.

To be honest, records are one thing, and I feel very, very proud of this record and really love the idea of getting to share it. But one thing that I think is becoming more and more essential to me in our culture is to have some culture. [Laughs.] And to have a place for people to go. In other words, I think performing live is becoming more and more meaningful to me, probably since the pandemic, but also just given this climate of division and the idea that somehow we’re not all on the same side.

I guarantee you history will look at us as all being on the same side. When we’re all gone, it doesn’t fucking matter. You think that would make things different, but it doesn’t. So I’ve just been noticing it in the audiences, too, that there’s some deeper appreciation. Maybe they’ve just gotten used to this band being around as part of the culture or part of their own personal experience. But having said all that, I just want a new song to sing, and I kind of feel motivated all the time by wanting a new song to sing.

Did you ever read, or read to your kids, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time?

Yeah, it rings a bell. I don’t remember reading it, but I think I’m aware of the story.

There’s a passage in it that reminds me of your note that accompanies this album, where you write that “creativity eats darkness.” The kid characters are looking at Earth from far away, and it’s clouded in darkness. And then they’re told that all great artists are lights for us to see by. That made a major impression on me as a kid. And it sounds like you also see some inherent good in the act of creation.

Yeah, I just think that it’s hard for people to be destructive and hurtful of other people when they’re making things. When you’re spending your time being in the beauty business. [Laughs.] It’s really simple but effective, I think. You’re less afraid. I can get really scared, like everybody else, about the state of affairs. I don’t think there’s ever been a person that’s ever walked the earth that hasn’t had some anxiety about their mortality, and probably every period of time has had enough things to worry about. So I don’t think that’s anything new, but that probably explains part of the reason we tell each other’s stories and remind each other that it’s not new.

In How to Write One Song, you say, “A lot of people think it’s not very rock and roll to be punctual and courteous, but I disagree.” Some people would probably denigrate the idea of scheduling time to write a song instead of waiting for inspiration to strike. Maybe they’d think it’s not cool to clock in and work when you could be enjoying the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.

Yeah, but see, I just reject the idea that working isn’t enjoying the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. [Laughs.] I do enjoy it, and I do think that the muse hits a lot, almost reliably, because of a practice, because of a certain discipline about putting myself in its way. I get excited almost without fail. If I spend enough time playing the guitar or writing, I am going to find something that takes my mind in a direction that I did not anticipate, and I’m going to be entertained, or beyond entertained. I’m going to be moved by it, possibly. At the very least, I’m going to discover something that I didn’t know was there and make something out of nothing.

There’s that Roger Ebert quote, “The Muse visits during the act of creation, not before.”

Yeah. [Laughs.] Right.

You have a line in “Feel Free”: “Let It Be or Let It Bleed / John or Paul, Mick or Keith.” I’m more of a Paul person, partly for the prosaic reason that I admire his work ethic. Because when you’re a genius, you can coast on your genius, but Paul McCartney is going to outwork you as well. He’s going to keep showing up and writing songs even though he hasn’t had to for decades. And I find that inspirational because even if I can’t make that same magic happen, I can keep showing up.

Right. Yeah. I always think that there’s some polar contrast between Dylan and Paul McCartney, and I’m sort of somewhere in the middle. I think Paul McCartney has this extreme desire to be loved and please people and basically kind of unburdened himself of his genius and talent by just saying, “OK, it’s everybody’s. I’m going to give it away every chance I get. I’m going to give it all up.” And that’s what he’s done. And Dylan has never understood that and never looked at his gift as belonging to anybody other than himself, and in a way that has done the same thing. It’s preserved it for everybody, in an unadulterated purity, in spite of it seeming like he’s fucking with us.

Some artists are inscrutable, either unintentionally or on purpose. People probably wouldn’t describe you as inscrutable. You wrote a whole book about how you do this. And even though there’s some element of ineffability to it, you’re trying to put it into words to explain it to the rest of us.

My thinking is that I have a tough enough time knowing myself. And so the idea of just being open and transparent and sharing what you feel like you’ve learned from time to time … I get that people might think that the mystery is gone, in this sort of simplified version of how mysterious certain personas can be and this opaque, kind of mystical thing that an artist can be shrouded in. I think it’s just weirder that we’re all here. I’m already weird enough; even if I shared every single thing, every private thought I had, I think it would just get weirder. I think that the way that even my whole family, even The Tweedy Show during the pandemic, just letting people in—to some people that looked like just being overly transparent or maybe just bravely transparent or something. Who knows? But it also just felt like this is still pretty weird to everybody. [Laughs.]

Speaking of Paul and John, you have a song on here that shares a title with a John song, “Cry Baby Cry.” There’s a White Album–ness to the variety of this record, which includes an homage to the Velvet Underground and a reference to Stray Cats. Was “Cry Baby Cry” a conscious reference?

This is going to sound really weird and maybe disingenuous or something, but I really think this is true. I think I forgot that there was a song called “Cry Baby Cry.” I was writing that, and it just sounded like the right thing. And then I’m sure there was some moment where I was like, “Oh, yeah, there is a ‘Cry Baby Cry,’ but it doesn’t sound like this, and it doesn’t seem to mean what this means to me.” And I don’t know of any other way to say this chorus. I mean, it is a quote, obviously. It’s somewhere in there. I was thinking more as an antidote to “Drill, Baby, Drill.” [Laughs.] It’s weird. You can do that. You can write a song called “Born in the USA,” and nobody’s going to stop you. And in some cases I have. We can call our record Star Wars if we want. You have to make sure your lawyers are prepared.

Lennon later dissed his song, so he probably wouldn’t mind that someone wrote a second “Cry Baby Cry.” Your actual children are on this record, but I wanted to ask about your musical children, so to speak. I don’t know if it’s strange for you to hear yourself referred to as one of the fathers of alt-country. But there’s been such a boom lately in alt-country, or indie country—that Waxahatchee, Wednesday, MJ Lenderman, Ryan Davis sort of sound. What do you think of the fact that this genre you helped pioneer seems to be thriving in new ways?

I think a lot of things about it. I think we’re in a moment where people are gravitating towards some sense of seeing each other and some community and seeing each other in the artists that they listen to, seeing themselves. It feels like it’s a good time to tell stories to each other. I don’t think there’s a lot of energy in a certain age group right now for generating some sort of mystique. [Laughs.] Because I think that they’re traumatized, and I think that they need each other more than separating each other. And that’s ultimately what a persona does, an artistic kind of construct that you would put around an artist and have a disciplined artistic aesthetic that you’re trying to promote, some stylistic thing. It’s a lot more sloppy than that and a lot more bighearted and open right now because I think that everybody needs that.

So that’s the only reason I can think of, that it’s just something that has gained some popularity again. Waxahatchee, MJ Lenderman, Wednesday, Florry, all these different groups, seem to be thriving on a lower stage, a stage that’s kind of level with the audience. I think if I hadn’t come around, that would still be happening. I love that my records and the records that I’ve been a part of with other people in the past and Uncle Tupelo, I love that they’re part of it. They could be a part of it or they could give somebody permission, but we didn’t come up with it, you know? [Laughs.]

It’s not like we patented something and put our name on it. We were doing the same thing. We were finding some permission to take this sort of punk-rock aesthetic and idea that we were from a different time and being given inspiration and permission to do that from hippies that took on country music, like the Burrito Brothers. And if you dig deep enough into that history, the people that made the original stuff were weirdos. It took this turn as being a signifier of conservative white America or something like that. And the story, as a lot of things in America are, is much more complicated than that. And also much weirder than just that. It’s appropriated by the culture because this culture, the sort of inherent supremacy of the white person in this country, kind of eats and absorbs almost all culture and appropriates it. And that includes its own white culture and rounds out the edges of the strangeness that isn’t palatable to a certain type of regressive thinking.

There’s a fear of loss that permeates this album, even when it seems like you’re secure. In “Ain’t It a Shame,” you say, “I am welcome, I am loved, and I am free / But I have reached for something I can’t keep.” Maybe at times it’s mortality you’re talking about, but it also seems sometimes to be about love. In “Caught Up in the Past”: “I hear people in love / With a love that just can’t last.” In “Better Song”: “I better have a better song / For you to love me.” In “Sign of Life”: “And you still love me, right?”

[Laughs.]

And in “Enough”: “It’s hard to stay in love.”

“… with everyone.”

True, not with one person. And there’s the maybe more politically inflected line in “Feel Free,” “Get yourself born in the USA / Love with a love they can’t take away.” But you’re surrounded by loved ones, by your family, even as you’re recording these songs. Is losing love something you remember fearing or something you still fear?

I think it’s a natural fear everybody has. I think there’s the notion of losing people you care about, losing your freedom, your liberty, your ability to be a part of other people’s lives. I think the overriding [theme], to me, that is contained in the record is based on this notion that if you’re doing life right, it’s very stressful and painful, and you’re open to a lot of hurt. And you can’t get enough of it.

This interview has been edited and condensed.