Wilco – One Wing

There’s gonna be a new album by Wilco this year. Maybe it’s already out there, maybe it’s already out, too. But I’ve been a beloved follower of the band for some time and lately their latest album, Wilco (The Album), has been playing a lot. I’ve been listening to a lot of gloom and downtrodden music like Interpol, some newer stuff like Wooden Shjips and older touches, too, but I recently kicked up my turn table a few days ago and I dusted off this album. It’s not that old, ha, either but the record hadn’t been played in a very long time. But with that album, I always dug the way it gelled at showing something relaxed that still had some mesmerizing moments. This is just one song off it, where Jeff Tweedy sounds especially awesome, so it’s not to cap it as only this song but hopefully I can find inspiration to discuss more of the album later.

It’s a weird weekend too. First one not at ACL for me in three years. Bummed. Yeah.

So back to the song…there’s a driving guitar that rings the entire way throughout; the lyrics are blunt, sincere and honest. “One wing will never fly, neither yours nor mine…I fear we can only wave goodbye.” By this point the guitar skill and flair of Nels Cline had nestled with the band long enough to where the guitar solos were now towering over the music: here connecting the bridge and chorus while delivering a fantastic solo. The aesthetic options – the fusing of the solo, the way Tweedy sings, the music’s swelling throughout – is something best discovered alone but even this seasoned, Wilco still sounds great. The basis of the story is observable imagery to a wrecked bird that now has only one wing to fly on. The lovers each shared a wing to connect what must have been a beautiful bird to behold but in the end, it dies away. It’s life at one of its most pure forms: it started off as something promising and wholesome and it gradually darkened. And it wasn’t even that she wasn’t great (“you were a blessing and I was a curse”) but that it was the inevitable cycle that every thing eventually dies, even a flightless bird, sad and broken. – Bryan