Ode to Wilco

Some things I love; some things I hate.

I love thinking about my favourite music. I think about it all the time and in endless variations: favourite live albums, favourite cover songs, top five songs about complete bastards, top five songs written from a complete bastard perspective, and so on. You name it, I will give it some serious thought. One thing I don't love so much are those super-limiting social media challenges about top tens. So many rules. Just post the cover. No comment. Albums that "influenced you". But Kevin MacDougall, my best music friend, did it and challenged me to do it, so I did it. I broke the rules. I commented. I think, in the end, I posted 32 records instead of 10 and I still agonized. I am still agonizing.

But playing along led me to this sweet memory of discovering my favourite band.

Here is my day 10 post. It definitely contains a comment and four Wilco albums instead of one. Not sorry.

Day 10. Kevin MacDougall challenged me to post 10 albums that influenced me, without comment. Well. Instead of a comment, here is a story. And instead of one album, here are four.

On August 24th 1999 I heard Wilco for the first time. Seven months earlier I had split up with my husband. My kids were 2 and 5. I was as tired and rattled as I have ever been. A ghost. I took the train to Toronto to see REM at the Molson Amphitheatre. I was sick with a cold that was becoming something worse, probably bronchitis, and by the time I got to Toronto I had a fever. I sat on the grass feeling weird and happy, sweating in the cool evening breeze. Wilco was the opener and was touring Summerteeth. They started slow and then played Nothingsevergonnastandinmywayagain followed pretty closely by Shot in the Arm. I remember cocking my head to the side like a dog and thinking I had never heard anything like it. When I got home I went out and bought the album and the clerk put the fat pad of his index finger on Jeff Tweedy in the band photo on the back cover and said “This guy can do no wrong.”

I bought everything. I buy everything. I see them every chance I get. They are my favourite band and unlike so many favourites, they just get better. As a live band, it is hard to imagine their equal. My real top ten would have nothing else in it. When trying to pick a favourite, this is as narrow as I can go.

For the record, REM was in top form that night, crazy light show, high energy. Michael Stipe talked about what a great songwriter Mary Margaret O’Hara was, which made me feel like the universe made sense and that everything would probably, eventually be OK.