The Strange Journey of Uncle Tupelo: A Comparative Music Review

By Stefan Beck | Monday, April 15, 2002

It seems the planets (or at least the release schedules) have aligned in Jeff Tweedy's favor. Wilco's rabidly anticipated sixth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch Records), is slated to come out on April 23. It comes just one month after the Columbia/Legacy release 89/93: An Anthology, a collection of twenty-one songs by Uncle Tupelo, the pioneering punk-country band in which Tweedy wrote, sang, and played bass before founding Wilco.

How Tweedy changed from a shaggy-haired young country rocker in Belleville, Illinois into one of Chicago's most brilliant and respected musicians is the subject of a long, strange history.

As Tweedy explains in Anthology's extensive liner notes, he grew up listening to country music, and had 'a revelation at some point that that music was scarier than Henry Rollins could ever be.' It was only natural then, upon reaching high school, he team up with guitarist Jay Farrar and eventually form Uncle Tupelo. The band, named after a Carter Family song, was the first of many to be saddled with labels like alt.country, insurgent country, and the ever-irritating y'all-ternative.

Of course, Uncle Tupelo was by no means Tweedy's band: of the twenty-one songs in the anthology, twelve are sung by Farrar. Tweedy admits that he was initially intimidated by Farrar's musicianship. But by the end of their partnership, duties were split between them—with Tweedy beginning to outstrip Farrar in the songwriting department.

Indeed, many of the best songs on Anthology are Tweedy's. His harmonica- and fiddle-tinged 'Screen Door,' from Tupelo's 1990 debut No Depression, is an anthem to the good (country) life: 'Down here / we don't care / we don't care what happens outside the screen door.' Jeff's 'The Long Cut,' a straightforward rock piece from Tupelo's 1993 Anodyne, is an aggressive and emotional favorite. And his countrified reworking of the Stooges' 'I Wanna Be Your Dog,' available only on this album, is a gem—a flawless blend of fingerpicking and punk swagger.

There is much to be said for Jay Farrar's singing and songwriting as well. The album's opening track, a cover of the Carter Family's 'No Depression,' showcases Farrar's dramatic vocals, and it has served as a rallying cry for the members of the alternative country movement. The punk-influenced, rapid-fire 'Graveyard Shift' is one of Farrar's, and the band's, finest numbers, demonstrating the energy and intensity of which Tupelo was capable. But Farrar falls flat when he strays into lyrical ruts. There are no fewer than four songs ('Whiskey Bottle,' 'I Got Drunk,' 'Still Be Around,' and the classic 'Moonshiner') on the album in which he mercilessly beats the dead horse of alcohol abuse. The songs are well-executed, but tedious nonetheless.

The Anthology is also missing some essential selections from the Tupelo songbook. Tweedy's joyful 'Acuff-Rose,' Farrar's 'Fifteen Keys,' and 'Give Back The Key To My Heart,' sung with legendary country artist Doug Sahm, all belong on any real chronicle of the band's history.

Thankfully, the album makes up for these shortcomings with several of Jeff Tweedy's most remarkable songs. On the punkish but poignant 'Gun,' he sings, 'I sold my guitar to the girl next door / she asked me if I knew how / I told her / I don't think so anymore' and 'My heart / it was a gun / but it's unloaded now / so don't bother.' 'Watch Me Fall' is a sneering and defiant celebration of failure. The album closes with an excellent live recording of 'We've Been Had,' which combines pounding rhythm guitar with traces of lap steel. Tweedy's hoarse, nicotine-ravaged voice is a wonder throughout.

When Uncle Tupelo broke up, Farrar and Tweedy went their separate ways, forming alt.country mainstays Son Volt and Wilco, respectively. Son Volt's debut Trace met with immediate critical acclaim, but Wilco's clumsy A.M., though not without a few truly impressive songs, was a flop. It seemed Farrar would be the greater success, until Wilco returned fire with the imaginatively rocking double-disc Being There (1996) and the lush, often shocking lyrical masterpiece Summer Teeth (1999).

The long-awaited Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which comes on the heels of Wilco's two impressive collaborations with Billy Bragg (Mermaid Avenue Vols. 1 and 2), was experimental enough to result in Warner/Reprise's dropping the band. Tensions between Tweedy and bandmates caused longtime guitarist Jay Bennett to drop out as well.

All that aside, the album is weirdly beautiful, unlike anything else Tweedy and Wilco have written. YHF may well be for Wilco what Pet Sounds was for the Beach Boys or what Sgt. Pepper's was for the Beatles. The band has stripped itself entirely of the alt.country trappings that characterized its first two albums. Even the melancholy pop of Summer Teeth has been whipped into something different. What remains is the confident, inimitable voice of a self-proclaimed rock and roll lover.

The cool resignation of 'I Am Trying To Break Your Heart,' the opening track, sets the tone for many of the album's slower songs. Jeff's cautious strumming eases out of humming feedback and what sounds like an alarm clock or toy piano, and he sings: 'I am an American aquarium drinker / I assassin down the avenue / I'm hiding out in the big city blinking / What was I thinking when I let go of you?' The song continues along these confounding lines, until sinking into epic, densely layered sonic territory.

The violins and keyboards of the delicate 'Jesus Etc.' make it an musical centerpiece. The song is clean and precise. Although its lyrics ('strung down your cheeks / bitter melodies / turning your orbit around') have Tweedy's despondent touch, it's ultimately an optimistic and very hummable number. It is followed by 'Ashes Of American Flags,' which, although written long before the destruction of the World Trade Center, has an eerie signifance, as Tweedy sings, 'I know I would die / if I could come back new.'

Some of the songs on YHF are decidedly radio-friendly. 'Heavy Metal Drummer' is a bright, blissful paean to youth, in which Tweedy recalls 'playing Kiss covers / beautiful and stoned.' It would have made a fine hit single, which makes one wonder why Warner/Reprise felt it had to drop the band. 'Pot Kettle Black' is similarly up-tempo, more akin to Summer Teeth's 'Every Little Thing' than the songs on YHF.

The album is riddled with allusions to Jeff Tweedy's self-confessed fascination with shortwave radio: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is, in fact, a station on the short-wave network operated by Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad. Many of the songs on the album are wrapped in a fog of feedback, plinking, chimes, and fuzzy keyboards that remind the listener of radio static, orchestrated into music. And on track three, 'Radio Cure,' Tweedy softly moans, 'My mind is filled with radio cures,' before launching into the lumbering chorus, 'Distance has a way / of making love understandable.'

Everything on YHF builds up to its second to last track, 'Poor Places.' It is by far the most creative and intricately structured song Tweedy has written to date. It moves along a careful trajectory, from its bleak opening to its rising chord progression to the snappy pianos of its Beatles-esque crescendo. Lyrics like, 'His jaw's been broken / his bandage is wrapped too tight / his fangs have been pulled / and I really wanna see you tonight,' give the song a curious atmosphere.

As Tweedy sings, 'It's hot in the poor places tonight / I'm not going outside,' the song collapses into the musical equivalent of a plane taking off, and an anonymous female voice repeats 'yankee / hotel / foxtrot.' The song exhausts the range of emotions, which is why it precedes the cooling-down of 'Reservations,' a long, sleepy piece that sounds like the bottom of an aquarium.

Listening to Uncle Tupelo's Anthology and Wilco's YHF side by side, it is difficult to imagine the life that led a rustic punk to redefine rock and roll. The two albums have little in common, save their energy and Tweedy's rough, raw vocals. But Anthology does give listeners a feel for a rock spirit that, shaped by experience and innovation, was bound to turn out something as unusual and moving as YHF. And, whether or not they'll play it on the radio, it's Wilco's most original and personal work yet.

The Strange Journey of Uncle Tupelo: A Comparative Music Review

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