Sometime during the pandemic, my youngest son and I became enamored of a small movie called Bandslam (highly recommend), that featured the story of a group of oddball kids coming together to form a band and compete in a competition (Bandslam) for a chance at a recording contract. As the credits are running, a song comes on--amazingly enough it's this week's tune--in which the vocals (but not the song) sounded very familiar. A little Google search and--voila--I came to find out it was a band that I like, from an album that I own, and somehow missed (or forgot about) in my musical adventures. Whatever gets you there, one supposes....
Wilco formed in 1994, when three of the remaining members of Uncle Tupelo (featured in Jukebox XL and CDLXVIII) decided to form a new band in the wake of Jay Farrar's departure. They moved north from my one-time home of Belleville, Illinois (Illinois side of St. Louis) to Chicago, and over the last twenty-eight years have enjoyed both commercial and critical success (as well as neither). Led by Jeff Tweedy, Wilco has won a Grammy for best alternative album, made Woody Guthrie inspired albums with Billy Bragg (also a Jukebox alumni, Vol. VII --way back in the early days), had numerous tours, and made the rounds of the talk show circuits. For their career, Wilco has released thirteen studio albums (with four reaching the top ten on the Billboard 200), one live album, six EPs, and twenty-eight singles (with nary a one reaching the charts). Wilco released its latest EP earlier this year.
Fun Fact: Wilco's fourth album, Yankee Foxtrot Hotel, was not only rejected by their label, Reprise Records, but the band was fired from the label and given the rights to it for free. It went on to become the bestselling album of Wilco's tenure and is a perfect illustration of how fucked up the music industry has been for too many years to count.
"What Light" was the first single released from their 2007 album, the rather atmospherically named Sky Blue Sky. The song would go on to be one of their twenty-eight single releases to not hit the Billboard Hot 100, while the album would be the first of their two albums to reach #4.
"What Light" is a simple song with a simple message that says so much more than the sum of its parts. The message: let your light shine in whatever you do. The simplicity of the song is in the band's elegantly quiet instrumentation, Tweedy's understated but heart-rending vocals, and the subtle sparseness of its melody. In the end, I can't help but think that if a moment of clarity had a theme song, "What Light" is what it would be.
Lyric Sheet: "And if the whole world's singing your songs/And of your paintings have been hung/Just remember what was your is everyone's from now on..."
Enjoy:
Peace,
emaycee
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