Rewind: Jeff Tweedy

Pushkin, we have a pretty great episode from our back catalog to play for you today. In late twenty twenty, Wilco's frontman and songwriter released his compact How to Write One Song Book, an immense guide for bringing out anyone's

Can I start with this tantalizing little anecdote. You're telling your book that when your dad got mad, he would go into the basement and write poems. And all I could think of is this is the Jeff Tweety origin story.

Pretty much? I think, so yeah, it was your father musical.

My father was a frustrated entertainer. He got my mom pregnant in high school and they dropped out and he got a job on the railroad, and I think his whole life, I think that he wished that he had had an opportunity to be on stage somehow. But he was not particularly musical. But he was entertaining, that's for sure. But he aspired to be musical. He always he liked to sing. He drank a lot, and he got up at every wedding and embarrassed us, terribly humiliated us in lots of cases.

But were his poems?

Were they any good?

Yeah?

I know my dad was brilliant, you know, they weren't. I don't think that they were good in like a Robert Frost way or but they might have been good in a Jimmy Stewart kind of or Ogden Nash maybe at the high end of his aspirations. But you know, he wouldn't have had any of those references other than

But the poem he wrote the poems when you said when he was angry.

That was my memory of them.

Yeah, and I sadly, you know, a couple of summers ago when he passed away, we you know, we emptied out the house, the house that I the only house I'd ever lived in when you know, like my parents bought when my mom was pregnant with me. And I found a lot of his homework from when he taught himself or basically learned computing, early on math homework and stuff like that. But I didn't find any of the notebooks that had any of the poems.

So I suspect that he just got it off his chest and then threw them away, you know, Yeah.

I just I just love these kinds of generational parallels. It's almost like, you know, if you were on the couch, I would say, you're like tweety two point zero, you're like the do over, the frustrated musicians who's writing these essentially lyrics, and then you're you. You've come along and you've turned it into an art.

Well, yeah, I mean, uh, there's there are tons of parallels that I mean. I mean it's disturbing as you get older, how much you start to look like your parents, and I look like exactly like my dad. And you know, I think he suffered from a lot of the same

When did you write your first song? Do you remember.

The first song I remember writing? And I'm pretty sure that there were songs before this, But the first song I remember writing was a song called your Little World, and it was about a girl and her not having enough room in her world for me.

And how old are you when are you writing?

Maybe thirteen fourteen?

You don't remember it, do you?

Your little World's much too small? Oh, I ain't got no room at all, So yeah, I was. I can remember it, I could play it.

Actually. One of the weird things is is that.

This local musician who went by the name Joe Cammel band Joe Cammel and the Caucasians, they actually recorded that song and made a single out of it.

Oh really it is?

It exists?

Yeah, yeah, because I was. I was this kid that hung out with all, like at the record stores and hung out at the you know, with around other musicians when I could get near them, and I would always say, I write songs. And this guy in this band, Joe Cambill, said, hey, let me hear one of your songs. And I went over to his house and I played him this song. He said, oh, that's great, I'm going to record it. We're gonna like go to record this song, and he did.

It's fantastic. What when do you think you wrote your first good song?

Well, I honestly don't think that that one was terrible. I think it's you know, it's it's not great, but it was it was good enough for somebody else to want, you know, see some potential in it. The first song I liked that I wrote was probably screen Door on the first Uncle Tupelo record. You know, that's the first one where I felt like I had said something that felt true to me and that I didn't necessarily have

How old are you when you write that song?

Sixteen sixteen seventeen?

Yeah, so pretty. It's funny. I just I have heard musicians of various kinds answer that question over the years, and there's a whole set of them who like, you know, ten years passed between the first songs they write and the first one they like. Yeah, but you you have a much less ambiblic relationship to your early songwriting.

One of the things I feel like I've had some shame of out in my life is how shamelessly I love stuff that I make. And I think over time, I've really made peace with it because I think that that's like kind of beautiful and it's kind of one of the things that's allowed me to grow. I don't I don't tend to keep liking things that I've made. I tend to get pretty dissatisfied with them over time. But when initially, even when I figure out how to play something on the guitar that someone else has done,

But I I've always felt like that.

Does that make you a bad judge of your own songwriting?

I think it does, And that's part of the reason that I've had to learn a lot of different ways to get out of the get my ego out of the way, like allow things to just state for a lot longer, or put them away and forget them, forget about them so that I can come back to them

But it sure helps if you feel like it is at the moment, in the moment.

You know, you describe in this lovely book You've just done, how to write one song. Yeah, you describe a series of exercises songwriting exercises, and also describe a kind of what a songwriting day should look like. And I was curious before we go into that, how long did you I mean, if that's the pattern of songwriting you practice, now, how long have you been doing it that way? Did you always have this kind of very structured way about writing music.

No, I think that I've as I've gotten older. I think one of the things I've really had to learn how to do is provide myself structure because I work in a profession that doesn't have a lot of structure outside of touring, which is extremely structured and routine. You know, but being home has always been a little bit dangerous for me in terms of my mental health. Though the routine has been something I've had to learn and has

You described this ideal songwriting day in the book. When was the last ideal songwriting day you had and what did it look like?

It's been a while.

I think the ideal day, the last one I might have had, would have been during the process of making the album I just released, Love is the King, where you know, around eight o'clock at night or something, I would have started working on a song that I was thinking about recording. The next day, I would have you know, worked on it and played around with it, maybeate a little demo of it on my phone until like maybe midnight,

So I would have done some revisions on.

That, maybe until around five or six, and have a rough mix to take home and have some dinner and listen to records generally until I get excited about trying to make something to beat something I just heard, some sort of like trying to activate some competitive side of my brain, and then start the whole process over with maybe seeing if I could, you know, come up with another song for the next day.

So in your ideal world, is it a song from start to just finish in that one day, or is is it that you have little bits and pieces already there that you're going back and finding and playing with.

I can do a song start to finish in one day, but typically there are little pieces of raw material that have been accumulated. Yeah. I think one of the things I might do at eight o'clock, say, the beginning.

Of the day I just described, would be to go.

Through my phone and find a musical idea that I'm excited by that I don't know, just catches me enough unaware to start dreaming about it and start like fantasizing about where it could go or what it could sound like.

Do you have your phone with you right now? Can you play as a musical idea off the phone?

Sure?

Let's see.

Well, this one sounds a little bit maybe a little bit more finished than normal. It's the tunnel at the end of the light.

So that is that? Has that little bit been turned into a song yet or is it just waiting?

It's waiting.

I mean there's and then there's stuff that's maybe I don't even know what this is, just some chords I thought were pretty uh, but yeah, there's there. There are dozens, or not dozens. There's probably literally hundreds of those things in my phone. When they stack up a little bit, I usually transfer some to the computer here at the loft, so they're at least in a couple places.

Yeah, and now time for a coffee break with my Broken Record co host, Malcolm Gladwell. This coffee break is brought to you by the Starbucks Coffee Company.

With me today, I.

Have the esteemed co host of this show, Malcolm Gladwell, who I don't think I'm telling tales out of school here is quite a coffee drinker, right.

I enjoy coffee and a coffee shop aficionado. I'm it's more than just its experience. It's not just a coffee. I spend enormous amounts of time in coffee shops.

Would you say you would rather drink coffee in a coffee shop or would you rather take it to go?

Always in? Always in? Yeah, you know, I'm not a guy who like takes it in, like sits in my car and drinks my coffee my car. Otherwise you're you're ruining the fun, which is settle in a nice table sun streaming in the window, eaves dropping on conversations, and then you you enjoy your cup of coffee. Okay, I'm like, this is a little moment in my day where I can reflect and relax and sit back with a cup of coffee. Wow, there's a moment in the afternoon. That's

I do.

I had all these friends who they were, all these grow friends, I mean from Stanford. They all lived in in San Francisco, and everybody came east for a wedding. It's in Long Island. And I remember on the morning of the wedding, Chris, who was the chief hipster of the California crowd, said, this is like, I don't know when this was mid nineties. Maybe Chris says to the assembled multitudes, I hear there's a Starbucks finally out here. We piled into cars that we drove somewhere like it

It remains, it remains thirty thirty years on, remains a destination for me.

Yes, yes, I'm sure that Starbucks is still there.

Absolutely leads me to want to ask sort of seasons aside, are you a hot coffee guy or only hot colbrew?

Only hot? To me, the whole coffee on ice thing is like, what are you doing? Wow, that's not We're not here for that. On a on a ninety eight degree humid day, I will go in and I'm having and there's always a point of confusion because I'll go into cofee, Im sall, I have a capuccino and there's a pawn and they're expecting me to say iced, and I say not iced. This is not I'm not doing it. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not, like, you know, turning my back on my coffee experience just because the weather's

I gotta say, I'm running through my memories of going to coffee with you, and I really can't place an iced coffee in your hand at all. I think you're telling the truth there that you really are not doing ices. Before we end this coffee break, I gotta ask you, Malcolm. Yeah, there's been a whole wave of oat milk drinkers of late.

Not doing it almond milk. I am aware and grateful for the option, and I don't look down anyone who wants to go to the oat milk route. I am an unwavering traditionalist. I have a cappuccino that is hot with whole milk. I don't, I don't. I never wave from that. My thing is, you know, I'm very very you know. My whole thing on now, I've only only drunk five liquids. I was gonna be yeah right, it's red wine, it's water, it's espresso based beverages, it's milk,

All right, man, Well, thanks for the coffee break, Malcolm, all right, justin all right. I know Malcolm said he doesn't like ice drinks, but I happen to love him. And so after we talked, I went down to my local Starbucks here in Long Beach to try their ice or Chotta oat milk shaken espresso. And this drink is incredible. It's a blonde espresso combined with or chata syrup that delivers a fusion of cinnamon, vanilla, and rice flavors, shaking together with ice and topped with oat milk. I'm a

So I'm investinated by this process. How long might some a little bit linger on your phone or in your archive before you use it? Is there stuff? And if we went into the you said sometimes you download them on at the loft. How far back would we have stuff there from ten years ago you've never used?

Yeah, I mean probably there are.

I used to do it on cassettes and basically I used to just leave a cassette in a dictaphone old style like what you would have Steno would have used, or someone in an you know, secretary pool, and I would just leave it on the coffee table and until it filled up, and then I'd put another cassette in. And there's there are dozens of those cassettes on the Suki ray album that I made under the name Tweetye. There's a song on there that I finished after fourteen years.

I think what song was it. It's called I'll Sing It.

Was there a little snippet of it that was the original snippet.

It's actually in the track I actually just played over the cassette version. Yeah, yeah, And then I think that ended up on the Summer Teeth box set that we just put out because it was written around the same time as Summer Teeth.

Yeah, when you go back and find a little snippet like that, do you remember when you created the snippet or is that gone?

It depends. A lot of times I don't remember at all. I have no recollection at all of a lot of times I don't even remember the tuning, and I have to like sit and figure out because I use a lot of different tunings, and I really hate it when I don't bother to tune the guitar to a standard pitch because then it makes it even harder to figure

But then there are times.

Where I absolutely have a distinct memory of where I was and what was happening. And a lot of times that's because there are other ambient elements that it made their way onto the recording. I like, say, backstage and somebody in Wilco walks through and says something, and I can viscerally feel that that room and I'll know even what city it was. In a lot of cases, sometimes when I'm doing it in hotel rooms in Europe and

Yeah. We did an interview with Nora Jones while back now and she was talking about how she did her song Wintertime with You, and she was talking about this this very process that she had some scraps, a little bits and pieces, and you had bits and pieces and you kind of put it together to create a really

Yeah?

I think that well, first of all, Norah Jones doesn't need me to help her write a song, for sure, but we admire each other, so there's a there's already a kind of a base level of camaraderie or something, you know, but I haven't found many people that I've worked with to have it just wildly different approaches to it.

Everybody seems to have.

Sort of the core process is sort of similar. You basically start with something that is nothing, you know, that feels but feels like it could be something, and then you basically surrender this idea that you can't you can't do that, you can't make something out of nothing, and you do it. And it's really the most important part is just letting go of the idea that it can't happen.

I think, and with someone else.

It requires a lot of waiting until you both have you know, both people have to feel comfortable and supported enough and trusting enough to kind of throw out ideas until you know, a light bulb goes off in two heads at once. It's a little bit more full proof in a way because you have that consensus of universality for two people as opposed to like just trying to imagine that everybody will like something you like.

We'll be right back with more from Jeff Tweety. After the break, We're back with more of Malcolm's conversation with Jeff Tweety.

You've done an unusual amount of collaboration with other artists you write for, maybe Staples. You did those beautiful Mermaid Avenue albums with Billy Bragg that I are among my favorites. When you're writing with another person in mind, does it change the way you write a song?

Yeah, I think it does.

I honestly think that that is the thing that I am most comfortable doing. I think it's the thing I truly aspire to do more than almost any other thing that I get to do.

I always pick myself.

Being a person that would write songs for other people to sing, and Uncle Tupelo. I wanted my songs to be sung by Jay because he had this magnificent, like rich, authoritative voice, and I had this squeaky, you know voice that I didn't feel like was quite my own, even at the time, I was struggling to find it. As much as I felt great when I sang, I just loved the idea of writing the song more than the

They're there.

You don't even need to worry about whether or not they're good enough. They're important for people that don't know. There were all these lyrics that Woody Guthrie left behind that the music was never documented or he never really

Like, did you find it sort of freeing to not have to do it in your own with you with your own voice in mind? Yeah?

I think that I just struggle with allowing myself to comment on certain things that I don't feel like I have the authoritative weight to weigh in on, for for in terms of like mayvs Or something like that, or the things that I feel like Mayvas has a voice of righteousness of some you know, of some broader scope in historical importance and place.

You know.

There's just a way to it that I feel very privileged to have been able to write for. But a lot of those things are are not going to make as much sense coming out of my mouth. It just doesn't feel right for a lot of you know, social reasons.

I think, what's the right word to describe your attitude towards your own voice? Are you self conscious about it?

No?

I mean that about Tupelo and how you preferred if No.

I feel like I've gotten way better as a singer, and I've worked really hard to get better over a lot of time. And I actually I enjoy my voice, my singing voice quite a bit. I actually do like listening to myself singing now when I find things that I want to sing a lot of cases, i feel like I'm the only person that could sing it the

But all my favorite singers are like that.

Almost all my favorite singers have non traditional voices that have become communicative.

You know.

It's like it's like where they trade virtuosity or technique or whatever for sincerity or sentiment and conviction. And I feel like I found that in my voice over time, and I'm very, very proud of the idea that I still work at getting better and try and sing in tune, you know. But I'm more I'm much more concerned with making the words feel the way I want them to feel. Speaking voice, on the other hand, is awful. I cannot. I will never listen to the book that I just

So on this point in the book, you talk about stealing, but you're being a little bit mischievous because you don't really be in stealing, but you're talking about being open to influence essentially. So give me an example of another artist whose work you find lots of stuff to borrow from and be inspired by. And I'm just curious, does it come from everywhere? Are there predictable places where you go to find ideas well?

The thing I'm describing in the book is just based on this belief that you can't really copyright a group of chords. What I'm describing in the book is basically me saying, well, I'm gonna look for a song that I think has a bunch of cool chords in it, and I'm gonna learn how to play it, and then I'm gonna take it and make it into something that

We'll be right back with more from Jeff Tweety after the break.

What's an example of a song you listened to recently that triggered all kinds of reactions and inspirations in you?

You know, Kate.

I think Kate Lebon writes a lot to music that makes me feel that way. She's just the first person that popped into my mind. She she's an artist that has this undeniable kate leabondness about what she does, you know, like we're and that's that's that's hard to find, you know.

I think there's she has a very specific.

Angle that she comes at what she does, and and nobody else knows that precise angle. I think the song Meet the Man I wanted to Meet the Man. I think that's the name of it. So I think it's the last song on her most recent record. It has all of these twists and turns that are unpredictable, and I don't know, when you.

Listen to that song, can you turn off the part of your brain that wants to to kind of learn from it, use it, employ it in some way and just enjoy it or do you Is it is that part of the brain always on?

Well, that is how I enjoy it. I think that. I think that is part of how I enjoy it.

I I think I enjoy it first and foremost the way I have enjoyed music since I was a little kid, before I played any music or wrote any music. I am just attracted to sound and excited by records. And I don't think that that's any different, but I don't feel burdened by the knowledge that I have now, and I think it just adds this insight, like, oh wow, I can kind of tell what reaverb is going on there. But that being said, the things that I tend to enjoy the most are the things.

That I have zero idea how they came to be.

Those are the things I listen to, you know, like have more repeated listenings, tend to be like some hip hop records and things that are outside of my skill set, and you know, and then then there are times where I crave comfort food, where I just want to hear a simple country song played on an acoustic guitar, and I have a very very firm grasp on how that comes to be, but it doesn't diminish its importance in my life.

You know, is there an artist, a contemporary of yours whose career you'd have loved to have?

No?

I honestly, I've thought about that a lot.

I have moments where I have a professional jealousy. I think it'd be impossible not to have these moments, especially if you're somewhat competitive like I am. I think it's like, why is everybody righting about this guy now, like you know, like that, like I'm not ashamed to admit I have, like you know, it's it's not the end of the world to admit you have petty feelings, you know. But but honestly, I don't think so, because when I take

Right back with more from Jeff Tweety, we're back with the rest of Malcolm's conversation with Jeff Tweety.

It would be really fun if we put together a bunch of the stuff we've been talking about in a song, Like is there a song that you could break down, play and break down for us? Will you talk about all the little pieces that brought it together, how the song was created, the little bits of influence if you remember them. Is there one that's that fresh in your memory that you could do that a little mini masterclass.

Let me think I have a guitar here, so that's the g chord I always play when I pick up a guitar. It's an inadvertence.

You're the invariant g, the tweety G.

It's pretty same.

It's my grounding. Well, there's a song on the new record called Opaline where I was writing at this summer or this spring, when there was so much going on in the world, and our relationships with our police departments were being investigated and talked about a lot. So I'm

So those were those were the lyrics.

That I was playing around with. It's like I hear the police outside my window. I can hear them talking on the radios and uh, oh, you poorlice outside my window. How can hear.

Them talk in all the radios.

I keep my head, order my pillow, pray that they go on leave me alone. So that's like just one little chunk of this song that was a melody that I had without any words.

Did you write that chunk first?

Yea, I did, And then I had a piece that was like, oh, you know, I didn't really have any lyrics, so I was I We had a golden orb weave spider weaver spider in our garden this spring that I named Opaline for some reason, just because it just seemed like a cool name. I had an aunt opal and so I just started singing.

To her, Oh, oh, made believe that she still love me?

Oh believe. It's how to see reality.

I need got no love it all.

So that's just writing a country song that's just trying to figure out a way to get to the line. Reality is hard to see when you've got no love at all. Because one of the things that has been on my mind.

A lot these last few years.

Or you know, for a while now, is how do you get to the point where reality doesn't matter? And it obviously is very negotiable for a lot of people in our information climate that we can shop for, a reality that we trust and believe, and there isn't a shared consensus a lot of times, which is really maddening and strange to witness. We don't even have the same agreed upon fictions anymore, you know, Like it's it's really troubling.

So you have in this song, you have that opening image of the kid in bed head under the pillow and hearing the cops outside and worrying, and then you have opening yeah, and then you also have other interesting element is it's very plainly a country song. But we're not in country territory.

Are we.

Well, I mean, country territory is pretty pretty vast in my opinions. To me, where country music fails is when it tries to adhere to the tropes of country music and becomes like civil war re enactment or something. It's you know, it's not it's not about what's happening. And this is this is a weird song for me to pick, but I'm gonna stick with it now because we're in it.

And so.

I actually wrote this in the car into my phone of just voice memo into my phone. There's nothing worse then a hearse drive and slow out on the toll way. Stop being at the tolls, No change, no easy pass, what a way to go? There's nothing words then a heart's driving slow?

Oh you know.

Then you get back into the forest.

Do why wait, don't question, But you had the heart experience and you have these two little bits that you've already done. Why do you think the hearst experience belongs to this song or not any number of other things that you have stashed away for future reference. How do you know it belongs here?

It's just what was in my mind.

So I don't really think of things as accidents that I need to really investigate. And it just it sang well to these this melody before I could even make a decision and about where it should go, you know.

What I mean.

It's like that song was already in my mind. I'd been working on it. So those are the those are the patterns that you walk around with when you have a song in your head. And that's one of the reasons I enjoy having a song on my head because then everything that happens to me is d you know, like everything fits in that melody. It makes it makes some order out of the world. I suppose you know.

So those lyrics that you just sang for me, is that exactly as you composed them in the car? Or would you fiddle with them later?

No, that's exactly as I composed them in the car.

And did you compose them in the car like like off the cuff or did you were you playing within your mind before you recording.

I played with it in my mind.

A little bit before I decided that I should document it before I get home.

Yeah, you know. And again I'm sorry. Now I'm total I can't get over theat this so much fun. Do you pull over or do you keep driving and you're singing into your phone?

Well, I mean, not to get too technical, but I pressed a button on my phone that allowed me to record it without having to take my eyes off the road.

No, I didn't mean I was suggesting you were an unsafe driver, but I was suggesting, like, does it I was imagined there was a scenario where you're so caught up in this that you're like, I gotta focus and you're like pull into the you know, the I Hop parking lot, and but no, no, you're just you're just driving merrily down the road, singing us into your phone.

Yeah.

I love also that you know, ninety nine percent of humanity seize the hers. I doesn't see the hers or sees the hears and doesn't immediately understand the the perfection of that metaphor. Well, I feel like you're attuned you you are attuned to these things.

Thank you. I think we all should be.

I mean, we're like we're walking around and that there's no there's no failed experiment. And if you're paying attention to the world, I think we get tired. I think we get overwhelmed, like I was saying before, with like inspiration or influence and things like that. And you know, we're not always receptive and we're not always we don't always have.

The energy or.

A lot of us have a lot of concerns all the time about a lot of other things that would require more mental energy than we have, and that tends to crowd out a lot of you know, paying attention to the strangeness of the world or the you know. I don't feel like I'm doing anything super unique in that regard. I just think that I am aware that my brain wants to make sense of stuff, and I give it an opportunity to make sense of stuff, you know, or actively participate in the fact that it does that.

I think all of our brains do that.

All of our brains would much prefer to find some reason for something to be the way it is, then for to try and accept and understand ambiguity and randomness and and things like that.

So we're we're.

Designed to do that, and then sometimes it hits you over the head because it is just too perfect and beautiful, like a hearse being stuck at a toll booth plassa.

Well, you're not done, We're not done. Keep going.

Well the thing, you know, So there's another verse and verse verse of chorus versus a chorus.

And then.

By that time I think I had already recorded it, and I had recorded the song without any lyrics. I didn't sing it, I just was just and then I envisioned this like long outro guitar solo. So I needed another verse and I needed something that was going to set up a long guitar solo into a chorus, And that was actually the hardest part, because I wanted something that sort of tied those two pieces together a little bit, at least ambiently somehow.

So I came up.

I came up with a bunch of things that I actually changed over time, and I can't remember all the different changes because I only know.

I only remember what I ended up on. But it was.

Uh, I'd like to find out while she had to go my heart once what a heart can't control. So I hang in the air as the light gets cold, and I heard in his shadows welcome home. And then

I'm still going to be.

I can't have what I want, but I can still imagine that you are going to think about me from time to time. And it's a it's a sad, pathetic notion that a lot of a lot of weak men have and I've had in my life.

And and is that you'll miss me.

When I'm gone, And and uh, I think it's more often than not wishful thinking.

Yeah, you to finish the song for us.

Oh well, it's just one more chorus.

It's so beautiful, thank you, Oh believe.

May believe that she's de love me. Oh it's hard, ser really.

When you got no love it all?

I love that. Thank you, well, thank you, Jeff. I think that's a lovely way to wrap things up.

Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

I hope you enjoyed that catalog episode of Broken Record. Here's some of our favorite Jeff Tweety songs. Hit the link to the playlist in the episode description and be sure to check out our video episodes at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from

I'm justin Richmond.