The USPS delivered this one kind of on time as they emerge from the holiday volume-palooza they suffered. This album was actually released digitally back in October, but I wanted to wait to give it a deep listen until the vinyl came in. This week I will revisit one of my favorite artists and discuss hype stickers and why it is a never-ending war to remove and preserve them. Last week I took us a on a quiet, yet layered, journey through a classic Americana album.

Jeff Tweedy

Love is the King

2020

Commentary

As many of you folks know, I am a Wilco fanatic. As a dad, I subscribe to the dad rock, it’s just that simple.¹ Many of you might even remember that I briefly discussed this new LP on my 2020 Best Albums piece a few weeks back. While the rest of the band has been doing their own things, Jeff Tweedy is churning out a book and new music while putting on a weekly show on Instagram with his family.²

I have covered Wilco and Jeff Tweedy here a lot. My collection contains nearly everything that has ever been physically released by Wilco and Jeff Tweedy. So, like Bob Dylan and Ryan Adams, you’re gonna see them here a lot. Tweedy’s last couple of solo efforts were pretty good, they took a little while to get into, but after a few listens, I discovered new things from each song.

Preordering this particular LP came with a bonus 7-inch record, colored white, with a track called “Susquehanna River.” I’ll get to the music later, but I actually put this song on first. I grew up along the banks of the Susquehanna, and I currently reside along the banks of its west branch.

Now, a word about “hype stickers.” Most new records come with some form of a hype sticker plastered onto the shrink wrap. I have made it a habit of carefully (sometimes not so carefully) peeling these off and incorporating it with the rest of the record. If I get a clean peel, I attach it to an inner sleeve if it doesn’t obstruct the art. Oftentimes, I simply cut around the shrink wrap and pop it into the record jacket. To some collectors, this practice is important. Me? I do it because sometimes the hype stickers are cool, and I am a weird completist.

Every now and again records get misprints which increase their rarity and value. Sometimes, the hype sticker has a misprint, as is the case for this particular record. The vinyl itself is not, white, but silver. However, the bonus 7 inch I mentioned above is white. In any event, the hype sticker just generally says “limited edition custom white vinyl.” I felt it was important to hold onto this one due to that slight inaccuracy.

“At the beginning of the lockdown I started writing country songs to console myself… ‘Guess Again’ is a good example of the success I was having at pushing the world away, counting my blessings — taking stock in my good fortune to have love in my life. Just a few weeks later things began to sound like ‘Love Is The King’ — a little more frayed around the edges with a lot more fear creeping in. Still hopeful but definitely discovering the limits of my own ability to self soothe.” –Jeff Tweedy

I did a little digging on some internet forums and found that the cover image is of an American soldier in Tunisia in 1943 during WWII. The photograph was taken by Hungarian photographer, Robert Capa. The original image is a bit darker, so it would seem Tweedy altered it to add a bit of contrast. As far as personnel goes, Tweedy has both of his sons playing on this record along with a few other assorted musicians.

Track by Track

1. Love is the King

The first track is the title track. A lot of the songs on the album have a bit of a folky and country twang to them, but this one is classic low-fi Tweedy. Eventually a smooth electric guitar solo unfolds, it sounds like Nels Cline, but it’s not. Definitely Nels inspired though.

2. Opaline

Here’s where the twang starts. I get the feeling that Jeff Tweedy may have dusted off some of his old Uncle Tupelo riffs and melodies for this record. I also get the feeling this one is about mortality in a way, given some of the lyrics.

There’s nothing worse than a hearse driving slow
Out on the tollway, stopping at the tolls
No change, no E-Z Pass, what a way to go
There’s nothing worse than a hearse driving slow

3. A Robin or a Wren

Three songs on this album give a writing credit to writer George Saunders. This is one of them. It’s another song with a country melody that seems pretty happy-go-lucky. It’s another one that visits life and death. He does mention that many of these songs came to him during the lockdown. I suspect now that the death toll has skyrocketed–many of these songs make a lot more sense.

4. Gwendolyn

This was the first single off of the album and it is a pretty smooth indie rock track. It dispenses with the twang. It is a really fun song, some of the lyrics launched a new t-shirt sold on the Wilco store too. “Sun coming up like a piece of toast” Anyway, the video is funny in an avant-garde sort of way and features a star-studded cast. Just not in the way you’d think.

5. Bad Day Lately

A song that evokes the loneliness that many people were/are feeling during this weird time. It starts out very low and quiet, but then rises to a slight crescendo of electric guitar and drums. It has a very smooth down-by-the-beach feel, although the lyrics are a bit darker.

6. Even I Can See

Another quiet song, but this is more of a celebration of Jeff’s wife, Sue. I believe I talked a bit about that back when I covered Tweedy. The whole album was a tribute to her and her strength fighting cancer. This song contains a lot of layers both lyrically and melodically that I had a to listen a few times to fully appreciate its beauty.

7. Natural Disaster

I am currently reading Jeff’s newest book, How to Write One Song, and I don’t even think I could write a song as well as him. Even using his own advice. This is a catchy song with another folk-country twang, although the video I will post below is an obvious rough sketch of the song from the Tweedy Show in August of 2020. The lyrics describe several disasters that the singer has never personally experienced, but he has fallen in love.

8. Save It For Me

This song is also a love song, in the similar vein to the previous song. It’s got highs and lows. The loneliness of the situation is apparent, but there is love–which gives hope.

Save it for me
When the world falls apart I can say with certainty
There’s a reason
A light left on in an empty room
Is how a love can be

9. Guess Again

A third song where love is the overarching theme. It is semi-formulaic, but these songs capture just how weird everything has been. The lyrics describe a lot of simple pleasures, kind of like a revised “Few of My Favorite Things.” The singer tells us, well a singular person, to “guess again, it’s you.”

10. Troubled

If it weren’t for the music layered around the lyrics to this song, it could really pass for a straight poem. I mean, that’s what songs really are to begin with, but trying to just listen to the lyrics while ignoring the instruments, isolating each phrase, gives this song in particular more power. Obviously written, again, in the shadow of the lockdown.

11. Half-Asleep

A classic Tweedy-style song. He dispenses with the folk-country sound here for a slow, somewhat plodding, song. It serves as an adequate coda for an otherwise fantastic album. I would have preferred he closed it out with one of the bonus tracks I am about to discuss.

Bonus!

As I mentioned earlier, this album came with a bonus 7-inch record with two excellent country songs on white vinyl. “Susquehanna River” and “I’d Rather Be Alone” deserved to be on the full album in my esteemed opinion, but I am glad they are seeing the light of day on the bonus 45.

Both songs are straight up country rockers that sound like more mature Uncle Tupelo songs. Like I mentioned before, “Susquehanna River” is a river and topic I hold near and dear to my heart, so I was pretty excited to play this one before I even listened to the actual album.

1. I also dress my daughters in Wilco apparel, because their store has some excellent stuff for kids.
2. Confession: despite being a huge fan, I have never watched it, although I hear it is usually pretty good.