Wilco Wonders
October 7, 2006 (10:27AM) Sat
We drove up the back roads from our house to get to M52, hoping it was north of the construction that Warren noticed on his way back earlier. It was the perfect fall evening. The light slicing across the landscape. The trees just starting to look changed. Most dull, yellowing with age , but every once in awhile a flash of red maple or sumac. We drove past the dried corn stalks, open indigo lakes, aged general stores. David said how he loved those trees that stand alone in a farmer's field. Yes that makes sense. Rugged individuals. We didn't miss the construction, so we got to sit and bask in the sunlight, while the steamrollers slowly strolled by. I had straightened my hair, and couldn't stop petting it. It was a nice soft moment of just being. Warren chose that time to play David some Tom Waits. It's funny how your mood can become so accepting, even of the gasping, knarly notes that irked you so the last time you heard them.
I had proudly found a brewpub for dinner. Warren was cranky from his long car trip, and pointed out that a brewpub wasn't necessarily the best place for beer or food. WTF? Oh well, there's plenty of restaurants nearby. Still we ended up there. And it was wonderful.
Warren was generally out of sorts. I had made sure the Wilco shirt was clean. He said he wasn't going to risk being ridiculed by David for breaking his "rules". I thought how lucky I was that I didn't give a shit about David's ridicule. The security that comes from being his mom. This was the theme of the night for me: Moms. Jeff Tweedy's mom dying. My mom's frailty. My own mortality. My own children. Being a mom. Moms are the first thing we know, inextricably linked to everything we learn and become, so deeply a part of us, and yet our life's work is to separate.
I used to think I had to impress my mom. I still dress up for her, clean up my house frantically when she's coming over. But that is some internal thing, because when I see my kids doing that for me, I realize that it doesn't matter one bit. I love them to pieces whether they are clean or smelly, perfect or struggling. Judging them is like an exercise in self discipline, because in many ways it is like looking at one's self, but in paralysis or something, because there is not one thing you can do to change the thing being judged. So it is a Buddhist exercise in accepting. The quote from Roshi Suzuki: "You are all perfect, but you could use some improvement."
But I digress.
The concert was the event I wanted to discuss. We only got slightly lost, found a parking spot right across the street, had wonderful seats on the floor, close enough to see the strumming of the guitars. The opening band was just finishing, and I kind of regretted missing them. They were lackless performers, staring at their feet, but the wash of sonic sound created by the five guitars was amazing. I love the way live music seems to get inside your very blood vessels. We only saw the last song, though.
Every time I see Wilco I am surprised again at how much I can feel from music. Is it that the vessel is so full, or that I am? "Half of it's me, half is you," Jeff sang gesturing with his open hands over the guitar.
He didn't speak to the crowd for more than hour. They just played song after song. Wonderful, intricate weaving of the recorded version, with new riffs, and sound washes. Impossible Germany with a new Nels solo, and a bit of a re-ordering of the verses to solo. I couldn't help wondering about "Handshake Drugs" begun on an acoustic and then rocking out with the band. Such a personal song of struggle. I guess they all are. Moving from that into "She's a Jar," Nels weaving that eerie pedal steel throughout. "We could use a day off." I reiterated to Warren, my work-a-holic, wilco-a-holic.
"Float like leaves
And freeze to spread skeleton wings
I passed through before I knew you"
Spoke to me of this fragile tenuous self, that exists before anything. And got me to thinking of the mother, so tied up in the "I" and elemental part of who we are, and yet not. "My fragile family tree."
Then a couple of songs later was Airline to Heaven. The ultimate Woody Guthrie lyrics getting a little flubbed : "She's got ears that don't see..." The tragedy of it all, this to me is the "rub" for in that sleep of death we won't have ears to hear that music. Warren always tells me we would feel it in our soul.
I guess that is the thing about Wilco. No matter what, good sound or bad, floor seats or nosebleeds, I feel it in my soul.
When we left the night air was refreshing, after all the dancing and singing, and catharsis, as Jeff so entreated us to go for. The moon was bright and full. I was with the two men I love most in the world. And the Tigers won.
We drove up the back roads from our house to get to M52, hoping it was north of the construction that Warren noticed on his way back earlier. It was the perfect fall evening. The light slicing across the landscape. The trees just starting to look changed. Most dull, yellowing with age , but every once in awhile a flash of red maple or sumac. We drove past the dried corn stalks, open indigo lakes, aged general stores. David said how he loved those trees that stand alone in a farmer's field. Yes that makes sense. Rugged individuals. We didn't miss the construction, so we got to sit and bask in the sunlight, while the steamrollers slowly strolled by. I had straightened my hair, and couldn't stop petting it. It was a nice soft moment of just being. Warren chose that time to play David some Tom Waits. It's funny how your mood can become so accepting, even of the gasping, knarly notes that irked you so the last time you heard them.
I had proudly found a brewpub for dinner. Warren was cranky from his long car trip, and pointed out that a brewpub wasn't necessarily the best place for beer or food. WTF? Oh well, there's plenty of restaurants nearby. Still we ended up there. And it was wonderful.
Warren was generally out of sorts. I had made sure the Wilco shirt was clean. He said he wasn't going to risk being ridiculed by David for breaking his "rules". I thought how lucky I was that I didn't give a shit about David's ridicule. The security that comes from being his mom. This was the theme of the night for me: Moms. Jeff Tweedy's mom dying. My mom's frailty. My own mortality. My own children. Being a mom. Moms are the first thing we know, inextricably linked to everything we learn and become, so deeply a part of us, and yet our life's work is to separate.
I used to think I had to impress my mom. I still dress up for her, clean up my house frantically when she's coming over. But that is some internal thing, because when I see my kids doing that for me, I realize that it doesn't matter one bit. I love them to pieces whether they are clean or smelly, perfect or struggling. Judging them is like an exercise in self discipline, because in many ways it is like looking at one's self, but in paralysis or something, because there is not one thing you can do to change the thing being judged. So it is a Buddhist exercise in accepting. The quote from Roshi Suzuki: "You are all perfect, but you could use some improvement."
But I digress.
The concert was the event I wanted to discuss. We only got slightly lost, found a parking spot right across the street, had wonderful seats on the floor, close enough to see the strumming of the guitars. The opening band was just finishing, and I kind of regretted missing them. They were lackless performers, staring at their feet, but the wash of sonic sound created by the five guitars was amazing. I love the way live music seems to get inside your very blood vessels. We only saw the last song, though.
Every time I see Wilco I am surprised again at how much I can feel from music. Is it that the vessel is so full, or that I am? "Half of it's me, half is you," Jeff sang gesturing with his open hands over the guitar.
He didn't speak to the crowd for more than hour. They just played song after song. Wonderful, intricate weaving of the recorded version, with new riffs, and sound washes. Impossible Germany with a new Nels solo, and a bit of a re-ordering of the verses to solo. I couldn't help wondering about "Handshake Drugs" begun on an acoustic and then rocking out with the band. Such a personal song of struggle. I guess they all are. Moving from that into "She's a Jar," Nels weaving that eerie pedal steel throughout. "We could use a day off." I reiterated to Warren, my work-a-holic, wilco-a-holic.
"Float like leaves
And freeze to spread skeleton wings
I passed through before I knew you"
Spoke to me of this fragile tenuous self, that exists before anything. And got me to thinking of the mother, so tied up in the "I" and elemental part of who we are, and yet not. "My fragile family tree."
Then a couple of songs later was Airline to Heaven. The ultimate Woody Guthrie lyrics getting a little flubbed : "She's got ears that don't see..." The tragedy of it all, this to me is the "rub" for in that sleep of death we won't have ears to hear that music. Warren always tells me we would feel it in our soul.
I guess that is the thing about Wilco. No matter what, good sound or bad, floor seats or nosebleeds, I feel it in my soul.
When we left the night air was refreshing, after all the dancing and singing, and catharsis, as Jeff so entreated us to go for. The moon was bright and full. I was with the two men I love most in the world. And the Tigers won.