Jeff Tweedy on the Lyrics That Changed His Life

In his 2020 book How to Write One Song, Jeff Tweedy explained that the act of songwriting is all about “the joy of disappearing long enough to find something you didn’t know you had inside you.” For the Wilco leader—who delusionally considered himself to be a songwriter when he was only 7, years before he actually wrote his first song—putting lyrics to music involves workmanlike perseverance and a push toward self-preservation. “In writing songs, I have found something that overwhelmingly makes me a happier person, more able to cope with the world,” he wrote in that same book.

Over the last 35 years, Tweedy’s songwriting has evolved from twanging porch-side musings to rock’n’roll statements of purpose to surreal commentary on Americanness to singing the praises of domesticity, to name just a few iterations. But along that winding stylistic path, his tone as a writer has remained admirably consistent. A Jeff Tweedy song is weary, tugged along by a nagging belief that tomorrow could still be better than yesterday. His songs acknowledge feelings of hopelessness without wallowing in them. They can be sad or angry or sweet, and within Tweedy’s music is the implicit promise that he’ll keep going because he needs to. Writing songs is what makes him whole.

On paper, his latest solo album, Twilight Override, can seem overwhelming: 30 songs across three LPs, totaling nearly two full hours of music. But where many triple albums feel mountainous in their ambition—something to stare up at in awe—Twilight Override expands flatter and wider, like an endless prairie. This is an album that lives and breathes alongside you. Recorded with Tweedy’s two twentysomething sons, Spencer and Sammy, along with a few friends including the Chicago composer and multi-instrumentalist Macie Stewart, the record is steeped in a casual humility; some songs sound like folky fireside singalongs, moments of willful communion to combat our era of disconnection and strife.

The album sometimes plays like a tour through Tweedy’s songwriting history. “Forever Never Ends” depicts a prom night gone wildly wrong, with “vomit on the frozen grass” and flares on the side of a highway, and boasts an anthemic hook that could have fit on Wilco’s 1996 album Being There. “Caught Up in the Past” is reminiscent of the symphonic-pop poise of 1999’s Summerteeth as its hook charges forward into the unknown: “No one stands a chance/Getting caught up in the past.” Acoustic strums flicker on either side of the stereo field throughout “Stray Cats in Spain,” which finds Tweedy spinning a dreamlike tableau from memories of rockabilly riffs and the smell of pomade; it could be a lost gem from the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sessions. There are instant classics like the self-conscious love song “Throwaway Lines” and the title track, perfect expressions that aspiring songwriters should be required to study for decades to come. And there are quiet epics, like “New Orleans” and “Feel Free,” that amble ahead with all the wisdom Tweedy has accrued during his 58 years of life so far. “Make a record with your friends/Sing a song that never ends,” he advises on the latter track, detailing a route to freedom he knows so well.

When I call up Tweedy over the summer to talk about some of the songwriters and lyrics that have made an outsized impression on him, he’s in the studio once again: His younger son, Sammy, is getting close to finishing an album, and has asked his dad to play guitar on a few songs. Sammy’s falsetto overdubs can be heard over the phone line from time to time, as Tweedy talks about what he looks for in great songwriting, the glories of losing trust in your ego, and the fascinating ways that an artist’s personal history can get tangled up in their music.

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Bill Callahan: “Pigeons” (2020)

Jeff Tweedy: I could pick at least two dozen Bill Callahan songs that have had this kind of effect on me. I’m a deep admirer of his. I know that the lyric is sacrosanct in his process; he’s mostly concerned with getting the music to fit the lyric and not the other way around. And Bill is really adept at getting you to see things that he has not written or specifically pointed out. They just appear. And that’s a real gift.

In “Pigeons,” you see the limo driver looking at the newlyweds in the backseat through the rear view mirror. You get a real feel for this specific encounter in a short space of time. And it’s funny. This is around the time Bill took a turn towards writing that’s almost sentimental and sweet. He’s written a lot of lyrics since that record that have deepened his work in my mind, because it’s almost domesticated, and it’s beautiful. It’s the same with Will Oldham. They both had children late in life compared to other people, and it’s been satisfying to watch them change and grow. I love both of those guys. And listening to this song, I learned the word “plenipotentiary.”

You’ve also gone through some changes in your songwriting over the years, going from a more straightforward style to a period of obfuscation and then coming back around again.

My songwriting has always been a process of discovery, and I very rarely had an idea for a song before I started writing it. But it seems like Bill in particular comes up with an angle, a concept, an encounter—basically a short story—and then gets it to work in a song. My songwriting has been really varied over the years because I’ve lost all trust in my ego to provide me with anything worthwhile. [laughs]

You’ve written some storytelling songs yourself, like “Forever Never Ends” from the new album, but those are relative outliers within your greater catalog.

I guess I’m still kind of a pop songwriter. As far as the storytelling we’re talking about, I’m much more interested in distilling it down to where it just works as a catchy song. I don’t think Bill Callahan and Will Oldham don’t write catchy songs, I just think that that’s not a concern for either one of them very often.

There’s a moment in “Pigeons” where the couple ask the limo driver for advice, and he has this great little soliloquy: “When you are dating, you only see each other, and the rest of us can go to hell/But when you are married, you’re married to the whole wide world.” At this point in your career, I feel like a lot of people must ask you for advice about a lot of things. Can you relate to the limo driver in this song, as a source of wisdom?

People do ask me for advice, and it’s very flattering. I try to answer their questions honestly but I’m definitely not the person to come to for everything. Some of the things that people have projected onto me are hard to live up to. Because I have been outspoken about political things, there’s sometimes an implied belief in my judgment, but I’m more interested in being honest about not knowing and being confused than people would expect.

But I do feel comfortable offering advice when people ask me about family, because they look at my relationship with our children and how our family appears to be pretty healthy in terms of our connection with each other. So people who have just had children want to know what the secret is to forging that kind of bond, and that’s a really nice question to get asked, because I do have some answers. I don’t think you can make it happen, but if it’s gonna happen, it’s going to be because you did not see your kids as an extension of you, but as themselves. And I don’t think you should ever talk down to them: If they’re old enough to ask, they’re old enough to know.

Lana Del Rey: “A&W” (2023)

As far as storytelling lyrics, “I haven’t done a cartwheel since I was 9/I haven’t seen my mother in a long, long time” is a pretty solid short story to me. It’s incredible to get that tiny amount of language to do that much work emotionally. Of the modern style of songwriter, there are a lot of people that I admire, and she’s my favorite. These songwriters have become mega popular, and it’s not just the songs—you have to buy into the mythology and the person, too. It’s almost like being into something like Lord of the Rings. You cannot separate a person from their iconography. It’s kind of genius. You can’t tell exactly what’s real or not, but it is absolutely essential that the listener buys into the mystique.

Singers used to try to be universal and provide something that the listener can relate to or see themselves in. That’s still happening, but it’s somehow heightened. There’s something parasocial about it, too, and I just don’t think Sinatra or Elvis did that. Elvis had a mystique, for sure, but with Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Lana Del Ray, and lots of others, there’s a belief in the person that enhances the songwriting. They’re both functioning at a really high level art-wise.

Does this added layer that comes with being a modern singer-songwriter make you grateful that you started out when you did?

I don’t think it’s ever been in the cards for me to have any kind of fan base like that, and I never had the confidence to carry any of that weight around. I wasn’t going to be a pop star, and I didn’t want to be. I honestly thought that once we got a record deal and had a van and could go play a show somewhere, my dreams were realized. Since then it’s been, How do I get to keep doing that and adapt to there being more people here? It’s a very different trajectory, and aiming for something completely different. I’m not condemning what these songwriters are doing at all, I’m just mesmerized by the magic act of it.

I understand the different trajectory, but I’d say your career has a lot of lore, too. One of my favorite recent-ish songs by you is “Having Been Is No Way to Be,” from your solo album Warm, which does assume a little bit of knowledge about the Mythology of Jeff Tweedy. I’m thinking of the lines, “Now people say, ‘What drugs did you take and why don’t you start taking them again?’/But they’re not my friends/And if I was dead/What difference would it ever make to them?” As a listener, knowing your history can add to the impact.

I can see that, to some degree. But if you don’t know me, those lines could still apply to somebody else. There are a lot of people in this world that get healthy and lose a bunch of their friends. That’s a common trade off that people have when they get into recovery. The love and loyalty of a certain group of friends can sometimes be a barrier to getting well; losing everybody doesn’t seem like it’s worth it to a lot of people.

I’m flattered by the idea that my history could play a part in people’s connection to the music, because in my own mind I’ve placed myself very far away from that type of communication with an audience. So it’s news to me that I could have some of it, and I don’t think you’re wrong, it’s just not something I can focus on for very long.

Richard Dawson: “Two Halves” (2019)

Richard Dawson has been cranking out incredible records for quite some time, and they’re all worth your while. It’s a style of writing I really love and don’t feel compelled to pursue myself. [laughs] It’s like short story writing—extremely patient, getting all the lyrics in the right place. I would imagine he revises quite a bit to get everything to be that concise and yet still vivid. He has tried a bunch of different styles to support these lyrics—there’s some proggy-sounding records and some very acoustic ones. He’s a one-of-a-kind artist who isn’t swinging for a mass audience. He’s very much making himself happy, and I love that. I don’t know of anybody better at really illustrating a story. I don’t think there are country singers that can come close to the poignancy of some of the stories he tells in his songs.

The song in particular is about a soccer dad who’s yelling at his kid from the sidelines.

It’s really funny. 

It made me wonder if you had that experience as a kid—and also if you were ever like that on the sidelines of your own sons’ games?

The Tweedy family hasn’t been overly sporty over the years, and I’ve never been a yeller on the sideline. [laughs] I just enjoy the chaos of it. I was appalled at that behavior as a kid, and I always felt so sorry for my teammates that had dads like that. When I played baseball as a young person, there was a team that we faced every year that was built around a father like that, who was basically abusing his children publicly, screaming at them.

My dad didn’t show up very often when I was a kid, and honestly I haven’t been around to view all of my kids’ performances on stage or in school plays as much as I would have liked, based on my touring lifestyle. But me and the kids have always been close, and I made it to every performance I was home for.

The Pretenders: “Brass in Pocket” (1979)

I’m not necessarily coming at every one of these lyrics overly concerned about the poignancy of the poetry or anything like that. I picked this one because it’s just sublime in terms of unique phrasing and getting a bunch of lyrics to fit into a melody and a groove—there’s not a single word that feels like it’s shoehorned in. You can aspire to that and get it right sometimes, and Chrissie Hynde seems to be able to do that all the time.

One of my favorite lines in this song is when she says she’s going to use her “imagination,” along with all of her physical attributes, to make you notice her.

“I feel inventive. I’m going to use my imagination.” Those are the real sneaky lines that get in there phrasing-wise. But they swing by with this forward momentum of all this almost-sexual language, alluding to the idea that the most erotic part of what people can share with each other is their intellect.

Chrissie Hynde has said that she made this song as a pep talk to herself, as far as having this untouchable attitude when you are stepping in front of an audience. Is that an idea you can relate to?

Totally. There is footage of her rehearsing this song in a studio around the time it was recorded, and she is so captivating. It’s like she was already fully formed as who she was going to become. I bought this record when it came out, as a very young person, and part of the appeal was hearing someone sound confident. [laughs]

I’ve always been drawn to you as a live performer because it seems like part of you is almost embarrassed to be on stage, which feels very modern and relatable to me.

Stages are complex psychologically for the audience and the performer, and I don’t think I’ll ever shake that. If there’s something somewhat embarrassing about walking on stage, it’s because you’re basically telling everybody that you want and need this kind of approval. You’re asking for it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You have to toggle between that being somehow shameful, like there’s some judgment about wanting to stand out that I might have from my upbringing. And then there’s the other side of it, where you can convince yourself that you belong there and that it’s not purely ego-driven, because there is a connection that you’re forging with an audience. You’re exchanging some energy, or some of your humanity. So it’s not entirely self-aggrandizing. I’m providing a service. [laughs]

So if I can look at it like that and be confident that I’m capable of delivering these songs that people ostensibly came to hear, then we’re in good shape. But I’ll always vacillate, and I would imagine that most performers do. They’re probably just better at hiding it than I am. There’s a part of me that thinks it’s more honest to not hide it. I made a decision a long time ago that I did not have the energy to hide it and curate a persona and manicure it and keep it tended to.

The Breeders: “Drivin’ on 9” (1993)

I don’t think I’ve ever fully understood a Kim Deal song, and that’s what I love about her. It just sounds so heartfelt, and like she’s singing something she believes. It’s not just language poetry. There do appear to be connections and stories that are emerging in her mind that we’re not privy to. I can’t quite put it all together in this song, and it’s fun to be left wondering, like, Why does her daddy not need a shotgun? What does this have to do with where we are? Maybe I missed something really essential in my interpretation, but I just keep listening to her sing because I cannot get enough of her voice.

While doing research for this interview, I learned that Kim Deal actually adapted this song from one that was written by the group Ed’s Redeeming Qualities. The original is from the point of view of a young man whose girlfriend got pregnant, and the Breeders version seems to be from the perspective of the woman who’s having the child. That said, I’m not sure if that knowledge makes me appreciate the song more or less. Do you generally look up the stories behind certain songs?

Not generally. There’s a certain ownership that comes with singing a song too, like you’re writing it in people’s consciousnesses. Knowing that it’s based on another song doesn’t make me appreciate it less, because it’s still her editorial choices. It still sounds like she wrote it, and it doesn’t sound out of place in her body of work. Something about that recording maybe does, because it’s the most rustic song on that album, but it still fits alongside “Cannonball” and “No Aloha.” It fits that fragmented environment. I love Kim so much. We’re friendly. We’re both really good friends with Steve Albini, so we’ve seen a lot more of each other in the time since Steve died, and we’ve all been in touch with [Albini’s wife] Heather a lot, too. 

You mentioned “Drivin’ on 9” sounds more rustic, and this song came out around the time that Uncle Tupelo ended and you started Wilco. Did hearing an alt-rock band do a country song have any impact on you then?

It was like hearing someone getting really popular doing something that I was sprinting away from at the time. [laughs] But I always loved it. I mean, I didn’t invent a fiddle tune.

Pere Abu: “Non-Alignment Pact” (1978)

Since Dave Thomas just died, I’ve been revisiting Pere Ubu. I think they thought they were gonna be really big, and this song should have been really big, but it doesn’t understand that not everybody is that smart. [laughs] I love it when there’s an obliviousness in someone’s lyrics, like how not everybody knows what a “non-alignment pact” is or understands why it’s funny to ask a love interest to sign one. He doesn’t want her to see anybody else, but instead of saying, “I want to go steady,” he said, “I want a non-alignment pact.” That’s pretty fucking funny. “I wanna make a deal with you, girl, and get it signed by heads of state.” It’s playful and full of angst; it seems really smart and very short on self awareness.

Have there been moments in your career where you’ve felt like a song should have been everywhere, but it might have been working on a level that was maybe too smart for its own good?

I would never be able to say that, but I think everything that doesn’t find an audience has some element of that—that the writer saw more in it than what was being communicated. That’s just part of what happens. You believe in something, you put it out there, and you don’t have any way of knowing until other people start listening to it.

Listen to Jeff Tweedy’s Words Matter picks—including one we didn’t get to in the interview—in playlist form on Apple Music and Tidal.