Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. DLXXII--Uncle Tupelo: We've Been Had

 We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again, so...I'm (four days...closer?) late again....

My original introduction to this week's tune came when my darling daughter sent me a copy of this week's bands greatest hits (discussed in earlier posts--see below) sometime shortly after the turn of this century, though that version was a live recording.  During the pandemic when I used to have to wait in my car while my son had his Tae Kwan Do lessons, I used to play music on my phone to pass the time, and for some odd reason one night it dawned on me that I'd never heard the studio version of this week's song.  I played that album version, fell in love with it anew, and quickly added it to my list for the pantheon that is Friday Night Jukebox....

I've written about Uncle Tupelo twice before (Vol. XL and Vol. CDLXVIII), and once about band member Jeff Tweedy's band, Wilco, since the band's break up (Vol. DI)) and therefore that's all I have to say about that (seems I heard that in a movie....).

"We've Been Had" was the eighth song on Uncle Tupelo's final studio album, the rather inoffensively entitled Anodyne (word's meaning here).  The song was not released as a single, and the album did not chart on the Billboard 200, though the album is considered by some to be among the best in the Alt-Country genre.

Fun Fact:  The lyrics make mention in the first line of a Marshall Stack, and if you've ever been to a rock concert and seen the amps upon amps stacked on stage...well that's a Marshall Stack.  The set-up is widely credited to John Entwistle and Pete Townshend of The Who which both used to let their instruments be heard over the others.

Ostensibly a song about the bullshit the band was fed by record labels, "We've Been Had" was written by Jeff Tweedy.  Featuring some punk influenced guitars that sound like a veritable whirlwind (and absolutely make the song), some tongue in cheek/happy go lucky vocals by Tweedy, and a spirited performance from the rest of the band (sans Jay Farrar who by that time hated Tweedy so much he refused to play his songs).  The song is a rollicking tribute to music, musicians, and fans--which is what Friday Night Jukebox is all about.  And the fact that I can play a really bad version of it on my guitar is just the icing on the rock and roll cake....

Amazingly enough (and how many times have I used that phrase over the years), this marks the end of my eleventh year of writing posts for Friday Night Jukebox.  Don't fret--fate willing, there'll be many more music posts to come.  That said, I just wanted to thank my loyal readers (all three of you) for their, well, loyalty, and offer my sincerest hope that it's been as much fun for you to read as it's been for me to write.  Onward....

Lyric Sheet:  "There's a young girl screaming/All the way in the back/Poor kid, she never saw it coming/Now she knows she's been had..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. DI--Wilco: What Light

Back to my old ways....

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:

Republicans = Nazis

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, CDLXVIII--Uncle Tupelo: Sandusky

 A Christmas miracle--only one day late!

My introduction to this week's tune--as it has numerous times before here on Friday Night Jukebox--came when my daughter sent me a copy of this week's album after I had told her how much I enjoyed the Greatest Hits CD she'd sent me earlier from this week's artist.  Turned out to be a great record--I listened to it for months driving back and forth from my home and Warren, MI where the tail end of my career in retail management had taken me....

I wrote about Uncle Tupelo in Jukebox XL (akin to last week more than four hundred FNJ posts ago), and like last week's post, I'm happy with the brief bio I wrote and don't have anything to add...other than to say how much I still enjoy listening to Uncle Tupelo.  One hell of a short-lived band.

"Sandusky" was the second to last track on their third studio album, the rather timely titled March 16-20, 1992.  The song was not released as a single, and though the album sold more than their first two studio efforts combined, did not chart either.

Fun Fact:  The album was named for the five days the band recorded it--and it's absolutely amazing to me how they managed to put together such a tremendous record in so little time.

Fun Fact #2:  The album was produced by Peter Buck of REM fame.  Buck let the band members stay at his house while recording the album so as to save money for the studio recording fees.

Jeff Tweedy said that "Sandusky" was the track he was most proud of and that the band created it in a collaborative effort while in the studio.  He also described the song as beautiful--and I think his description nailed it.  The song is a simple instrumental: it's basically an acoustic guitar with a banjo providing the backing vocals (so to speak), and the softly stated drums capturing the subtle nuances of its hopeful core (all of the instruments are played exquisitely).  For whatever reason, the song has always seemed to me to be the soundtrack for having survived some sort of tribulation and watching it in the rearview as you move on with your life.  As an F.Y.I., I have absolutely no idea why Sandusky (assuming it's named for the city of Sandusky, Ohio) was chosen as the title.  The city (famed for being the home of the amusement park Cedar Point) is believed to be named for a Wyandot word meaning water (it sits on Lake Erie), so maybe that holds a clue.  No matter--it's a moment where a band came together and created a little folk magic...and the world is always a better place with a little folk magic.

Enjoy:

Republicans = Nazis

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XL--Uncle Tupelo: Still Be Around

One of my fondest Thanksgiving memories is of one a couple of years after I'd moved to Michigan.  My kids had come to visit and after working my Thanksgiving shift for Kmart I was making tacos for our Thanksgiving dinner (don't laugh--tacos make a fine Thanksgiving meal).  My daughter was reading on the couch, my (now oldest) son was looking through my collection of CDs, and we were listening to  89/93:  Anthology by Uncle Tupelo.  I was stirring the Spanish rice when "Still Be Around" came on, and as music lovers are wont to do, I began singing along.  A couple of verses in it occurred to me that I wasn't the only one singing--when I peeked out into my apartment's family room my daughter and son were singing along as well. the three of us in not so perfect three-part harmony, enjoying the song as we went about our tasks.  And it seemed as natural as the fingers on our hands and the toes on our feet.

Such is the power of music.

Hailing from Belleville, Illinois (our home for fifteen years, give or take), Uncle Tupelo is considered one of the progenitors of alternative country (a notion they dispute) which is really saying something for a band that lasted only seven years and produced a mere four albums (though there is often strength in small numbers).  Oddly enough, considering I lived in Belleville through Uncle Tupelo's beginning, middle, and end, I came to their music in a rather roundabout way and long after their 1994 break up.  I was actually a big fan of Wilco, original band member Jeff Tweedy's post Tupelo band (I was also a fan, though to a much lesser extent, of Tupelo founder Jay Farrar's post Tupelo band, Son Volt), and on a whim my daughter sent a copy of Uncle Tupelo's Anthology thinking I might like it, too.  It was love at first listen.

Two minutes, thirty-nine seconds.  It is sometimes amazing how much can be crammed into two minutes and thirty-nine seconds of music.  Released on their second LP, Still Feel Gone, "Still Be Around" has a world-weariness to it that belies the twenty something ages of its writers.  Jay Farrar's vocals are perfectly understated and the song is driven by the simplest of melodies and some omniscient acoustic guitars.  Ostensibly about battling the ravages of alcohol (I think), I've always thought the song could also be a metaphor for battling the ravages of depression as well.  If anyone ever asked me what it's like to suffer from depression, I'd steal a line from "Still Be Around" and say it's exactly like, "..walking the line, upside down."  The song closes with an acoustic guitar break that's one part walking down the yellow brick road, and one part slamming on your brakes in the rain.  All in all, a fine addition to the folk canon.

Fun factoid:  The original members of Uncle Tupelo went to the same high school as my two oldest kids.  Go mighty Maroons!

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee