Jeff Tweedy and “Some Birds”

As of late, I’ve been more excited about the music Jeff Tweedy has been creating outside of Wilco. In all honesty, I think Tweedy’s first solo album Sukierae from 2013 is the best collection of music he’s penned since Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born. There’s things to love about post AGIB Wilco, but I’m just not as engaged with everything that’s come afterwards. 2015s Star Wars had its moments of greatness, and there was all this talk of “Hey Wilco are back! They’re back!” Well, Wilco never left. They’ve been solidly releasing albums every couple of years since 1994. It’s just that the need to break new sonic and creative ground seems to have waned a bit. I can’t imagine having to create songs that include everyone in that band. Everybody excels exponentially in Wilco with whatever instrument that’s in front of them. But to have everyone shine in every song would be a bit overwhelming. I think that’s why Sukierae felt so fresh and alive. It was Jeff Tweedy and his son Spencer writing and recording and enlisting a few people to help out. For the most  part, though, it was very much a labor of love.

On November 30th, Jeff Tweedy is releasing his second full-length record under his own name(not counting last year’s acoustic record Together At Last.) It’s called WARM, and you can hear the first single below. It’s called “Some Birds” and it’s got all the potential for another great Jeff Tweedy solo record. It has the spirit the Golden Smog days and the breezy nature of the Byrds and Wilco’s poppier moments.

About the track, Tweedy said “Some Birds” is “like a lot of songs on WARM, being a confrontation between self and shadow self simultaneously feeling I’m to blame and not to blame, present and gone, and utterly confused, but determined to hold someone accountable.”

Self and shadow self. Sounds heady, man. I dig it, though. My self and my shadow self argued on whether we should go for another plate at the family brunch yesterday. My howling waist won out and we sat till we could make our escape. You can grab WARM November 30th via dBpm Records. George Saunders even wrote the liner notes. Tweedy keeps good company, man. Real good company.