Wilco’s Balancing Act
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“I got a lot off my chest about spending my whole life playing music and being obsessed with it,” says Tweedy, who spent about 200 days on the road last year. “I know I can’t function that way anymore. To have a home life anywhere near normal I’m not going to be able to put so much weight on music, and to me that’s a good thing. It gets suffocating. I concentrated on letting the past go, letting it be whatever it was, and placing more importance on being a dad and being home, which is hard for me.”
Tweedy tackles the rock life from a variety of angles: “Monday,” a horns-sweetened stomper that wouldn’t sound out of place on Sticky Fingers, surveys the wannabe star who forgets why he started playing music in the first place. “Choo Choo Charlie had a pretty good band, but no one would come,” Tweedy sings; to make matters worse, Charlie’s neighbors, the mythical World Record Players, tour Japan while Charlie spends his days “fixing his van with a left-arm tan.” On the more introspective “Misunderstood,” a rocker goes home again to find himself alienated from not only what he left behind but also what he’s singing about; the song’s somber swells of piano, stark strumming, and effective use of backward tape recall Big Star’s emotionally raw Sister Lovers.
The sheer bulk of Being There could also test fan loyalty. According to Soundscan A.M. has sold 62,000 copies, and Reprise was initially hesitant about releasing a double album by a band that, in corporate eyes, hasn’t delivered on the charts. But the songs eventually won them over. The band took a reduced royalty rate and the label will take a profit cut to keep the list price down around $17. “Aesthetically I liked it better as two CDs rather than just one long CD,” says Tweedy. “The songs are really different and it doesn’t really have a focus, and that’s kind of the way I feel now.”
