Jeff Tweedy’s epic, new triple album Twilight Override doesn’t fit the time we’re in. If too much of everything has taken control of our collective attention, then Tweedy’s song deluge arrives as a thoughtful equalizer. But rather than manipulate your attention with a blood pressure-ramping algorithm, Wilco’s frontman offers a therapeutic journey through verses and choruses.
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I was hesitant to write a piece that highlights only a few tracks. This album needs to be experienced as a whole. But consider this list an introduction, an enticement to a longer trip that’s well worth taking.
“One Tiny Flower”
It didn’t take a triple album to understand that Tweedy is an “abundance” songwriter. Wilco’s second release, Being There, a double album, opens with the glorious six-and-a-half-minute “Misunderstood”. And its follow-up, Summerteeth, isn’t exactly terse. He’s been playing a long game for a long time. The opening track on Twilight Override is nervously gorgeous. The relentless acoustic guitar figure is nudged forward by the pointillistic drumming of Tweedy’s son, Spencer. Tender, dissonant, a kind of rage against its time. Fitting to open with “One Tiny Flower”. A determined bloom in the cracking concrete.
“Parking Lot”
This is one of my favorite moments on the record. Tweedy’s spoken-word piece glimpses at various versions of himself. A show-off who’s impressing others with his knowledge of cars. He then says he’d like to teach the world to sing, which echoes the creativity evangelism in his 2020 book, How To Write One Song. The track feels transcendent. The escape one experiences when writing music. It doesn’t always make sense or even need to. It’s the freedom of letting go.
“Cry Baby Cry”
The Beatles’ White Album may be the most famous 30-song long player you know. And Tweedy knows that too. He places “Cry Baby Cry” at nearly the exact spot The Beatles had placed their own “Cry Baby Cry” on the White Album. Where John Lennon’s dark nursery rhyme evokes youth, Tweedy’s feels like the other side of the lullaby. When it’s you, not your mother, doing the sighing. Staring at the moon, crying, because you never get it right.
“Enough”
If you’ve followed Tweedy since his days in Uncle Tupelo, you’ll recognize a recurring anxiety in his songs. But he’s also funny. Funny, how? Closing a nearly two-hour triple album with a song called “Enough” is funny. But his album-closer rages against despair. Rather than giving up on a cynical world, Tweedy wants more. He wants more creativity, more clouds, and of course, more songs. Twilight Override requires time and attention—two things we never seem to have enough of and constantly waste.
“This Is How It Ends”
Tweedy could have ended his triple album with “This Is How It Ends”. But like any writer interested in the economy of words, “Enough” would sufficiently do. Still, this is my favorite track on the album. It also features Tweedy’s irregular lead guitar playing, which he once described as scribbling. Think Neil Young meets Nels Cline rambling down a bumpy hill on a bicycle, handlebars shaking, slightly out of control, yet free as a child.
Photo by Sammy Tweedy
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