I was spinning free (whoa oh-oh-oh-oh)
With a little sweet and simple numbing me
-Jimmy Eat World, Sweetness
Jim Atkins was probably talking about a crush that was about to go south when he penned down this line - a good guess for any Emo song. Regardless of its meaning, for many geriatric millennials, “Sweetness” (and really anything in the early Jimmy Eat World catalog) is musical comfort food.
What do we mean by “musical comfort food?” We brought in a big Wilco fan to help explain on this week’s Bonus Track.
But first up, here are three songs we’re adding to our Music Swap playlist.
Those Boots (Deddy’s Song) by Lainey Wilson (Ben)
I’m a sucker for good narrative. Even if it’s not a great song, I’ll listen. Country music’s new artist of the year, Lainey Wilson, sings with a believable Southern accent. Her song, “Those Boots,” captures a story about her dad and how his boots help explain who he is as a man. It’s comfortable country.
Also available on Apple Music.
Flume by Bon Iver (Jonathan)
I was very late to the game with Bon Iver. While I didn’t start listening to him (real name is Justin Vernon) until three or four years ago, he is one of my go-to artists. His falsetto is unique—didn’t understand most of his lyrics at first, but it just sounds so good. Vernon’s song Skinny Love is his most popular, but Flume is still my favorite.
Also available on Apple Music.
A Certain Light (Live) by Josh Ritter (Kody)
If you live in the North or in the windy Midwest, this song is perfect for the arrival of spring warmth.
It’s been winter for awhile
The north wind’s wail cut like a baby child’s
It was hard to think her smile could bring springtimeBut it did, now it is
The green, green grass has grown up green and it’s
Feeling just the way it did the very first time
Spring has arrived here in Kansas City, at least in part, and I can say with Josh, “I’m just happy for the first time in a long time, in a long time.”
Also available on Apple Music.
Bonus Track: Musical Comfort Food by Mat Alexander
I love food and really enjoy cooking, eating, and experiencing adventurous and sophisticated foods. Nonetheless, when it’s time for me to celebrate I don’t gravitate toward fancy or expensive fare. I want meatloaf or pork chops or fried chicken and home-cooked vegetables (I am from Alabama so “vegetables” covers a wide range of meaning, including mac and cheese and sweet potato casserole that is a dessert moonlighting as a vegetable) with cornbread and rolls. Comfort food is just that: comforting. There is such a wide range of good and beautiful and sophisticated and challenging music out there, but I often find myself coming back to my musical comfort food. In fact, my friend Carl who owns our local record store Cosmic Debris tells me it’s time to branch out a little. I am not ashamed, though, to come back to the stuff that has become the soundtrack of my life.
I find myself returning—over and over again—to Ryan Adams, to the good ole Grateful Dead, to Death Cab for Cutie, to the Avett Brothers, to Jason Isbell. However, the one band that is my quintessential musical comfort food is Wilco. They have been my background music since college (shoutout to Sam Gregg for loaning me “Kicking Television”). As I watch the flashbacks, I can hear the songs playing. Jeff Tweedy is singing, “I’m the man who loves you,” as I drive from Mobile to Tuscaloosa to see my girlfriend (now my wife!). He’s singing, "I hate it here when you’re gone,” when I am pining for her back in my dorm in Mobile. “Sky Blue Sky” is playing as I drive down Dauphin Street as a young minister carrying one of my students, Adam Tait (now one of my best friends!), to Roly Poly for lunch. “Theologians” is playing as we make the excruciatingly long drive up I-65 to begin life as seminary students. “Jesus, Etc.” is playing as I rock my daughter to sleep in the nursery in the parsonage of Sunnyside Baptist Church in Shepherdsville, KY: “Wattsie, don’t cry. You can rely on me, honey.” An absolutely revelatory live version of “Via Chicago” is playing as I watch my first Wilco show at the Alabama Theatre in Birmingham, realizing that after a decade of loving Wilco I feel like I “get” them for the first time. I love the entire Wilco catalog. I have come to appreciate their work when they were a simple alt-country band (A.M.) and when they were in their most esoteric, experimental phase (A Ghost is Born).
But this section is a Bonus Track, not a Bonus Corpus. And we are talking comfort food here. So my choice is "Impossible Germany," a song that, when I hear it, warms and comforts me. "Ahhh, Wilco," I think as Nels Cline rips a tremendous solo. "Just the way I remember it," I tell myself as Tweedy sings, "Nothing more important than to know someone's listening." The obvious choice for a record from which to choose a track would be “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” the album which marked the major flashpoint in Wilco’s evolution and is one of the most critically acclaimed rock records in the last 25 years. It has been a joy to revisit that record over the past several months as the band re-released it alongside lots of bonus material to celebrate its 20-year anniversary. “Yankee" unquestionably has a special place in my heart, but the first Wilco record I bought was “Sky Blue Sky” even though it is decidedly not as celebrated as “Yankee." It happened to be released in 2007--right when my interest in Wilco was emerging. Pitchfork gave “Yankee” a rare “10” rating; “Sky Blue Sky” got 5.2. I feel a little bit of shame when I admit that "Sky Blue Sky" is my favorite Wilco album. I even felt some hesitancy about featuring a track from this record in this piece. Notice how carefully I laid out my Wilco bona fides before admitting I am a "Sky Blue Sky" guy. But interestingly enough, more folks are coming around on the album. It feels like a reflection of a general cultural backlash against snobby elitism that's too cool for everything. Pitchfork recently included “Sky Blue Sky” in a list of records they wished to rescore.* 14 years after its release, they changed the score from 5.2 to 8.5. Good on them for righting that wrong. The original reviewer, Rob Mitchum, panned the record and in doing so coined a term that has become a cultural touchpoint: "An album of unapologetic straightforwardness. Sky Blue Sky nakedly exposes the dad-rock gene Wilco has always carried but courageously attempted to disguise.”** Funnily enough, Mitchum has changed his tune on "Sky Blue Sky" and on "dad-rock" in general: "It’s exhausting to stay on the bleeding edge of what’s cool; it’s liberating to know what you like, and to find joy in it during those increasingly scarce moments of free time, or when you’re dealing with the stress of caring for the little humans you made.”*** Pitchfork, in their recanting article, hits at these same ideas: "(Wilco) found a way to evolve while lightening up, embracing community and sustainability while rejecting the myth that great art must be born from torture, tragedy, and visionary collaborations with Jim O’Rourke.”* In other words, even the hip guys who were once too cool for "Sky Blue Sky" are learning something that perhaps we all need to remember: There's not one thing wrong with comfort food.
*https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/pitchfork-reviews-rescored/
**https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/10219-sky-blue-sky/
***https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a29419783/what-is-dad-rock/
Also available on Apple Music.
Mat Alexander is a pastor in the Deep South. He has forgotten more musicians than we’ll ever know. He introduced Kody to the tradition of writing down the setlist at live shows. His most recent show was Ruston Kelly at Iron City in Birmingham, AL.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re a special fan! Please invite someone to join us each week for fun song recs and deep dives into the music that moves us.
-TheMusicSwap
Love the Music Swap. Recent subscriber. Gave you a shout out in my substack today: Friday Fast Forward Rewind. Thanks for what you do.
Two things:
1. Musical comfort food perfectly puts to words what I feel when I listen to my favorite stuff.
2. Kody doesn't know this, but I too write down the setlist from live shows I attend. So thanks Mat for showing Kody.