ARCHIVE / PHOTO GALLERIES
Q: How about if I just ask you to go through the CD (“The Palace at 4am (Part I)”) track by track, if you can tell me a little bit about each song, either the story of how the song came about or what you've gone through with producing it and trying to come up with the right way of recording it and playing it? Let's just go through them in order. "Puzzle Heart" was written with Sherry Rich. Tell me how that came about.
A: We recorded it for her record, which, through scheduling problems and all sorts of label problems and stuff, is still not out. And I … had to real quickly do a version of it for a movie, this movie a friend of mine, Noah Stern, made called "The Invisibles," which was a festival release and now it's coming out on video…
So I threw together a real quickie version, and I think actually the tambourine and the organ and the slide guitar from that quickie version actually remain on the finished version. And everything else has been redone.
And I just wanted it to be like a, just a – I don't know, somewhere between a cross between, you know, Rockpile/Elvis Costello-kind of pop and a little bit of over-the-top kind of Phil Spector-ness. And then of course the slide solo reeks of that George Harrison, which of course puts you in "All That Must Pass" and all the tracks that Phil Spector produced on "All Things Must Pass," you know? That's where the overlap happens…
You get that kind of horns and slide guitar and a whole bunch of acoustics, and then that's Brad Elvis playing drums on that. And he's such a maniac, you know?
Q: One thing I did not hear in the rough mix of that song is horns. Was that recorded before or did you add it recently?
A: Nate Walcott came in and did all the trumpets. I guess that was our shot at getting a "wall of sound" feel, you know? But I love the line they do. You can sing that line…
Any line, be it a guitar solo or a background horn line or a string line, I always like it… to have the melodic force where, if you took away the vocal, you could sing it. You know? That's my thought on strings. I just hate pads. You know? Like, where, when you take away the vocal, there's nothing but a pad there…
Q: When you collaborated on this with Sherry Rich, did you both write some music and some lyrics?
A: Yeah, it's actually kind of interesting, but usually one of us would write one and one would write the other. But this is both of us. And actually, the two versions we recorded have slightly different lyrics.
Q. The lyrics strike me as one of the classic kind of pop songs, where it's about romance or unrequited play, but you're using word play.
A: Yeah. I think you could say that about everything I've ever written. (Laughs.) Yeah, I mean I came up with that hook line and I called up Sherry and ... like, "I've got a title for you. Start working on it."
I read an interview with Elvis Costello once, where he said – Someone was accusing him of not writing meaningful songs and just playing with words, you know? And his comeback to that was, "Well, what about… 'I second that emotion'?" You know, this shit has been going on for a long time… It's a big part of pop music, you know?…
What happens, I think, is when it's done really well, people don't notice it. I don't know that anybody listens to "I second that emotion" and thinks, "Oh, that's word play." You know? They just go, "That's a great song."
So it's kind of an underground current in lyrical writing because it's seen as maybe not serious on one hand and then if it's pushed too far, it's seen as joky. A la They Might Be Giants. Even though I think They Might Be Giants has some unbelievable, beautiful, deep songs, you know?…
I think it's a current of pop music lyrical writing, or even Dylan, you know? Dylan's word play was, like, absolutely absolutely humorous. But not, you know? And I think that's what you strive for, to some extent, you know?
Q: Tell me about "Talk to Me."
A: That's got a good story. I had recorded a relatively lame demo version of it in a different key, kind of slow… I was just kind of throwing some tracks at Ed, you know?
Like Jay demos that are thrown at Ed, and there were like 15 of them, and I said, "Just, you know, I don't know, tell me what's here… Are these 15 pieces of shit or 14 pieces of shit and one cool song or –?" You know? It's kind of what I do a lot with Ed. I throw these real raw sketches at him and see what he thinks of them. And that's a lot of selection process, you know.
And due to some digital glitch, it played really fast. There's some sampling rate error. And the version he got was all sped up. And I was like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Let me send up a copy where it isn't all sped up." And he's like, "No, man. It's cool." (Laughs.)
Q: How much faster was it playing than the original?
A: Well, considerably.
Q: So this was like putting a 33 record at 45 rpm, sort of like that?
A: Yeah, something like that. If not a little more. So the tempo you hear it at now is the tempo that Ed first heard it at. And of course, my voice sounded like Mickey Mouse on it, you know? But Ed's like, "No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's cool as shit.” …
The demo's lame as shit, and the sped-up demo takes on a little bit of the character of the version we have now, which I really love…
Q: How long ago was it written?
A: Mmm-mmm. Two and half years, maybe. Well, I take that back. I was one of those "I've got a first verse, I got a chorus." .... So Ed wrote a bunch of lyrics on that one. That's always tough, because he's got to... pick up a lyrical thread from me and run with it, you know?…
And then, I mean, once we started recording it, we realized, "Jesus Christ, this is — Man, everything we threw at it kind of stuck... like all of those counter-melodies and different things. And what happened was we had to figure out where to let them stick and where to leave them out, you know. I let Ed play piano on that one. He was just dying to do that part, so – That was fun...
And that banjo solo just comes out of nowhere... Ed's been playing this song live at his solo shows, you know? And he does it with a whole different rhythm, and it almost sounds like "Squeeze Box" or something.
And he was sitting in my basement playing it in this different kind of strummy rhythm rather than that percussive acoustic sound that's on the record. And I was like, "Dude, let me grab a banjo." (Laughs.) So I love those things like, "What the fuck's a banjo doing in there?"
Q: It's not only that you've got a banjo solo, but it's a banjo solo followed by bells. And I was going to ask you, just in general, there's a lot of bell sounds, here and there.
A: Yeah, there's some bells on the record.
Q: Is that just something you like the sound of or what?
A: Yeah, and of course, I have to admit it's somewhat instrument-motivated. You know, I've always made that claim that people think records are these totally magical pre-thought-out things, but in reality there's somewhat of a "What do you have at your disposal?” mentality. You know?
And really, I did all the bells in ... one day or two days. I'd bought this really cool set of Deagan bells. It's a Chicago company. They're basically orchestra bells that you can play with a small keyboard… You play it on the keyboard and it triggers a little plunger that comes out and hits the bells. And it was kind of my new fun toy, so perhaps it got overused. (Laughs.)
Q. "Whispers or Screams." The title and the melody remind me of Elvis Costello.
A: Yeah, that's OK.
Q: Is it a conscious homage there?
A: Ah, I don't know. I mean, you know, what are you going to say? Well, the whisper/scream kind of lyric thing has been used a number of times. There's a Squeeze song, and there's another thing.
Q: Icicle Works.
A: Yeah. Right. So we can say that comes from a number of places. But… that song was written, about, in 30 seconds when I was living with Edward, like, five years ago.
I always used to go down in the basement. I had this little Marantz tape recorder set up that was my demo station... I had a cooler with a 12-pack and an ashtray and a tape recorder sitting on top of it. And I would just go down there and write.
And that come out in like two seconds. And I realized that that lyric had thrown out, and I was like –
One of my theories is that if a reference has been made more than a few times in pop music, it's OK to make it again. If it's only been made once, then maybe you should steer clear of it.
But... if it's lyrical or melodic or arrangement nod that has been made more than once – or more than twice, maybe – then you're just carrying on a tradition, you know?
I mean, Jesus Christ, how many times have people said "I love you" in a song? Or rhymed moon and June, or whatever...
But then you have the flip side, if it's been made a hundred times, you should probably steer clear of it again. So yeah, the melody, that just came out. I don't think it's a direct rip-off of anything. I came flying out.
Q: Tell me about recording that.
A: That was actually down with Ken Coomer and John Stirratt in New Orleans. John had actually gathered us together to start working on a solo record like five years ago, and was really– really, I have to hand it to him – was generous enough to say, "Look, why don't of just making this my record, why doesn't everybody throw out songs?" It kind of became the aborted Courtesy Move project.
Q: Yeah, you know, I've heard that mentioned before. So that was the concept behind that?
A: Yeah, it started as John's solo record and he was like, "shit, I can't pay you guys or anything, so why don't we just do everybody's tunes, you know?" And so that came out of that. Let me think about it. To be honest, nothing has changed. There have been no overdubs since the Courtesy Move session.
And that's why that one is credited as produced by Keith Keller, because he's the guy who recorded and actually was a really, was really a good motivationalist. He's one of those guys who could, the strength of his production skills is somehow almost subliminally motivating you to do something slightly beyond your capability, you know.
Q: So who all is playing on that track?
A: John's playing bass and Ken's playing drums. And as usual, I'm playing everything else. No, I take that back. Ed came in and did the background vocals. That's the only addition since then…
Q: And "Shakin' Sugar." I've talked to you a little bit about that before–
A: It was like "Wilco trash bin song."
Q: Why did it end up in the Wilco trash bin?
A: I don't know. It's like, on a computer, you know, you threw it in the trash, and I ran the little program to pull it out.
Q: Was this one of the songs you told me about where you would give an instrumental demo to Jeff (Tweedy) and he'd come up with the lyrics for it?
A: Yeah. Exactly. And also… you may notice a striking similarity between the drum sound, bass sound and keyboard sound on that song as on "Ashes of an American Flag" (from “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”). They were done 10 minutes apart from each other at the exact same setup… Because "Ashes of an American Flag" for about the first two minutes, is my demo of it. And so that's the closest connection between this record and the Wilco record.
Q: So who's playing on the "Shakin' Sugar" one that ended up on you and Edward's album?
A: Me, with Ed singing.
Q: I've heard a bootleg of Jeff Tweedy doing it solo. I've heard you and Edward doing it with almost Everly Brothers-like harmony and acoustic guitars. Then there was the rough mix where I think the keyboards mixed a little higher.
A: Yeah, they were, probably.
Q: Now you've added a little guitar lick at the beginning. What kind of sound were you going for?
A: Uhhhh, Rockpile. (Laughs.) Uh, Rockpile. You know, … I'm not afraid to make musical references, because to some extent my musical references are archaic… in the year 2002. And I think personally that bands, songwriters, whatever, have been making musical references for years and years, you know? And generationally, I'm making a musical reference there to 1978… And, well, that's a long-a** time ago, you know?
I happen to work with a musical vernacular that – what do you use to explain what you want to get across to another musician or an engineer or your songwriting partner or your audience? Well, you use the tradition of rock 'n' roll, you know? I think it's an absolutely ridiculous concept that you can come up with something that's 100 percent original. Because you're really, you're just fooling yourself.
So I have no problems– I don't want to rip off melodies, and I don't want to rip off, you know, huge, huge – I don't want to rip off entire lyrical statements or whatever, you know?... I don't want to feel embarrassed about it, but I don't want to tell the whole world, you know? What I think is kind of cool, is when, let's say I'm making a musical reference to something 24 years ago, right? I'd love it if someone discovered that, you know, and then they went and bought every fucking Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe record, you know?
Because as every generation goes on, there's more and more musical history to get caught up on, you know? Like someone who's 15 years old right now, he's got a lot more rock 'n' roll history to pick up on than you and I, you know. And the way you pick up on it is through things like this. Like you're going to say the "Rockpile-esque 'Shakin' Sugar,'" and some 15-year-old's going to go, "Whaaa? Huh?" ...
I don't want to rip off anything off totally. I love making musical nods at things. I mean, rock 'n' roll has this huge, huge, huge history of nodding at its own history, you know? And it's, I think that's – I give credit to people who try to throw the rulebook out. But that's just another thing rock 'n' roll has a long history of occasionally someone trying to throw the rulebook out... So if you throw the rulebook out, you're just doing what I'm doing, but in a reactionary way: "Oh fuck, it's starting to sound like this. Let's not make it sound like that."
See, you're really operating under the exact same rules... Rather than going with it, you're going against it. But, you know, you're doing the same thing. You're recognizing the elements of rock 'n' roll's past...
And I'm not making reference to anybody else there, but I just think it's fun. You know? It's fun, man. I think that's a catchy tune. And I think it's fun to have all those elements in there... And you use instruments you love. I love layered acoustic guitars, and I love baritone guitar, you know? And I love harmony vocals. So, those are all there.
Q: (The next song is) "C.T.M.," or "Care That Much"... I hear some of the same elements from the rough mix, but the guitar and drums have been kicked up, I think. It rocks a bit more than it did earlier.
A: Yeah. That's good. Oh, I'm glad...
Q: What's the story of that song?
A: Well, lyrically, it's one of those hateful and spiteful songs, you know? Hateful and spiteful with a punch line, which I think we both know there's a long – You know, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you." Three minutes and 50 seconds later, "I still love you." You know? That's something rock lyricists do. (Laughs.)
Q: What are some of the sounds you've got on this song? Sort of an interesting mix of sounds there.
A: There's a little xylophone in there, you know? And there's some clavinet used in a very peculiar way. There's some Wurlitzer, which clearly nods at something Fleetwood Mac-esque, you know? See, now I'm just giving you every reference. (Laughs.) ...And it's got that real dry '70s drum sound…
And Ed has always thought of that song as, like, something that could be on "Band on the Run" or something, you know, with all of those real dry '70s sounds and those low piano notes and stuff. And I think what's cool about that song is the way that you got a low piano and some weird synth and the clavinet and the Wurlitzer and the bells and – I'm way into this kind of shit – where it's the Phil Spector thing again, where like five instruments blend into one. You know, like, "What is that?" Well, the reason you don't know what it is, is 'cause it's five things strategically layered together, you know?
But the song's supposed to be kind of... angry, powerful and dry, you know? Direct, you know?
Q: How about "Drinking On Your Dime"?
A: That's an oldie me and Ed wrote just years ago, you know? And obviously we want to do it in a Nirvana-meets-Beatles kind of way. Which, you know, Nirvana kind of always met the Beatles. From the start, you know, even before they put in the cellos, you know? I mean, I don't know, that's just a really important song to me. It captures a time in my life, you know? I always describe that song as, like, me and Ed writing a song about me and Ed, you know?
Q: How much was added to that song after the rough mix, and how much did you just bring up in the mix?
A: We got like a real drummer – as opposed to me... And cellos and stuff, you know?
Q: Not to use another song reference, but there's some very "Strawberry Fields"-ish flute-y Mellotron on there.
A: Yeah, well, you throw Mellotron on anything and people go, "Strawberry Fields." ... I think it kind of rocks now... That breakdown thing came about during mixing, you know. Like I heard that little cello line that goes, "da-da-da-dum." And I just started singing along with it... And everybody's like, "Dude, you've just got to do that." I'm like, I am not going out there in the middle of the song and singing, "La-da-da-dum." (Sings in a light, airy manner.) But then I went and did it. (Laughs.)
Q: The next song, which I'm obviously familiar with from an earlier version, is "My Darlin'." What's the history of that song?
A: That’s my demo, from way back when. I wrote it for my niece for her birthday, probably like seven years ago. And I did a little demo of it, and every time I was back in Champaign I'd bring up –
Ed and I carried around for about five years "the album in a suitcase." We had all our tapes in a suitcase, and this album was sort of born out of our "album in a suitcase," you know? That's one of the "album in a suitcase" tunes...
Here and there, we'd add something. We got Brendan Gamble to play drums on it and Nate Walcott to play that, whatever, flugelhorn thing that does little (sings melody). Which again, is probably a Beatles reference.
But the main thing with that song is Ed and I had done this original demo vocal, you know, that was just real magical, and I wanted to keep that real front-and-center.
Q: Your mentioned your niece. What's her name, and is that –
A: It's my brother's daughter. Her name's Hope... It was a gift to her, and then like an idiot, I didn't send it to her until, like, you know, five years later.
Q: When this was recorded for "Summerteeth," on that record all of the songs on that were credited to "by Wilco," and now here on this album, it's listed as by Bennett-Burch.
A: Yeah.
Q: When I was playing the rough mix of your CD for a friend, they said, "Oh, this is the song Jeff Tweedy wrote about his son."
A: No, it ain't. Period.
Q: I guess people would make that assumption because of him doing the vocals on it.
A: Yeah, sure.
Q: Obviously, they were mistaken.
A: They were mistaken, but understandably mistaken, right? Given the lyrical content, right? And who was singing it.
Q: Obviously, you were involved in recording it for "Summerteeth," you were involved in deciding how to orchestrate it or play it. When you were doing it for this album, you just really wanted to go back to the way it was originally done?
A: I just loved my demo, you know, Ed's and my demo. I had just been written. We both played it with two acoustic guitars to a click track and sang the harmony together, and that was it…
Q: What is that bit of tape or spoken word you have at the end of the song? It sounds like some sort of family tape or something.
A: That's great. That is Edward's grandparents... I love that. That is so beautiful, his grandfather talking at the end. "Me and your mother are relaxing down at the farm. Hope you are doing the same." It's fucking tear-jerking, man.
That's his grandpa, who's dead now, and that's his grandma on there, who's still alive, who actually Ed went and saw at the end of our last tour. She's got to be in her 80s now, but her husband's dead.
That's him talking, "10-4. That's what they say in the Army." And then right at the end, his mom's there too, and you hear her say, "Billy!" See that's an old Burch family tape. They used to send tapes back and forth...
When he goes, "We got a little nut here," and you hear his grandma go, "We got a recording of a little Liberace here," the little Liberace is Edward, because he had just been singing some Carole King song or something earlier on the tape. Which obviously, you know, copyright-wise, we couldn't leave on there.
But I think it's beautiful. I wrote the song for my niece, … but here's this tape of little Edward and his family sending these loving tapes back and forth. It fits right in, you know?…
We actually intended to put (the family tape) at the end of "Drinking on your Dime," but we were mixing so quickly, we forgot to. I'm like, "Dude, it makes more sense putting it on 'My Darlin'." ...
Q: The next song is "No Church Tonite," a Woody Guthrie song. Tell me about the time you first found this in the Guthrie lyrics.
A: It fucking blew my mind, man. That's about all I can say, you know? Holy shit. I mean, that's so intense, man, those lyrics...
That song's got all sorts of fun, weird, swirly sounds and breakdowns and some intense shit going on on it, but, you know, when it comes down to it, that's, that's all about that lyric, man.
I mean, I hope that other stuff's fun, in the way it kind of builds up from this weird, swirly, almost like – I don't know, it's almost like old Western soundtrack or something at the top. It sounds like, you know, like an old wide-screen, letterbox open-West kind of intro or something… And then it kicks in at this really weird place. And we left it with my really horrible drumming on it because it felt right.
But it's all about that lyric. I mean, what more can you say, you know? That's stunning, you know?
Q: Was there any sort of notation put on this other than just the lyrics?
A: You know what? Oddly enough, he didn't. And I think that says a lot. Because Woody would typically write something down about them, you know?
Like, "Hey, here's the way I wrote it. If you want to change it a little bit, that's OK." You know? I'm doing a horrible Woody imitation. But… like, "I wrote this standing at the corner of the crossroads in Oklahoma, and I borrowed a few lyrics. If you want to borrow these, that's OK." You know? "I've been down and out and lonely a few times, and I wrote this song and it cheered me up, and I hope it cheers you up, too." You know? All sorts of things like that, he wrote…
"California Stars," man, at the end of that, he just wrote, "This song doesn't have too many lyrics, so sing it twice." … And we did. We obeyed his little instructions.
But the fact that he didn't write anything, I think, kind of says something. Like, what more is to say, man? This is what happens. This is the real shit, you know. This thing we call religion can get pretty fucked up, you know? It's about the abuse of power, you know? Preachers raping the farmer's daughter and then going to church on Sunday, you know? Or not (going to church), in this case…
Q: Did Wilco record this at all or try it out?
A: You know, we did once. It was kind of fun… We were making "Mermaid II," and last day, we (said), "Everybody gets to teach everybody else in the band one song, arrange it and record it in 15 minutes." ...It was like a little test. Everybody taught a song to somebody else. Everybody picked instruments, typically not their own. And recorded it in 15 minutes.
So mine sort of turned out sounding like "Running with the Devil." John's going, "Dowmp, dowmp, dowmp, dowmp." There are things from that demo that really kind of stayed in my head that get used, you know? Particularly, I think John Stirratt had some influence on the overall feel of that song, for sure.
Q: What's the story being "Fireworks"?
A: To be honest, … in a stripped-down form, it feels like a Billy Bragg song to me. Like an old Billy Bragg song. And I totally can picture him singing it…
But we kind of did it up in this bizarre, like, jingly-jangly Faces-meets-the-Attractions kind of way, you know, with lots of drop-outs and scene changes and backwards shit… It's a relatively simple song and (we) just wanted to keep it moving. There's kind of like two choices: We could have done it completely acoustic or done something like we did, where we keep it moving where every 16 measures there's kind of a scene change, you know? The main thing just was to keep the vocal up-front and let all that weirdness move the mood along. But I totally had Billy in mind for some reason.
Q: Did you actually talk with him about the idea – Or did you actually think of having him do this song?
A: No, I never actually got a hold of him, but that would have been fun...
Q: The next song on there is "Forgiven."
A: That's an old one, from the "album in a box." That's just a live acoustic and vocal, and a piano done right afterwards. And then we really only added a few things to it since the "album in a box" phase. But that's like, you know, it's the Burt Bacharach ballad of the record. (Laughs.)
That's a live vocal from Ed, that for a while, actually for a long time, he kind of wanted to redo. And then we lived with it for so long, we were like, "Hold on, that's – there's nothing wrong with that." You know? That, like "My Darlin'," is kind of like a moment in time captured… We've done a few things to it, but nothing that steps on the original spirit of it.
Q: Then the next one on there is "Like A Photograph." The final version here sounds pretty similar to the rough mix.
A: Yeah, it's the same one. Yeah, not even touched.
Q: For that matter, it's not that far off from what it sounds like when you do it at a live acoustic show.
A: Yeah, I mean, it's got a minimalist background. And that's another Courtesy Move track. With a guy named James Singleton playing upright bass on it, but it's Ken Coomer on drums... And me on everything else.
Q: Speaking of the Courtesy Move, what was the significance behind the name Courtesy Move?
A: Oh, God, you know how rock musicians always have these inside tapes they pass around, you know? Whether it be a wacky sportscaster or some band's between-song banter captured in the studio? It's from one of those tapes. It's somebody, this guy named Prophet Omega, this old black preacher dude. He reads his own commercial spots, and he's doing a commercial for a moving company, and one would assume he's trying to say the phrase, "a courteous move," but he says, "And they will give you a courtesy move." And that was that. A stupid musician inside joke.
Q: And as you explained before, that was going to be a project where you guys just kind of all contributed songs?
A: Yeah, and it's actually kind of still intact. I have it in a box at home. And John's got a few great songs on there...
Q: Did any of those show up on the album by his band, the Autumn Defense Project?
A: No. I really think he should have grabbed one or two from there, 'cause he had a couple, at least three, really nice songs. My whole thing is, it's new to the world. It might be four or five years old to us, but it's new to the fucking world, you know? But John's record is somewhat thematic sonically. So I guess these tunes would have stuck out a little.
Q: Was there anything in particular that inspired the lyrics for "Like a Photograph"?
A: It kind of flew out of me, real quick. I mean, I guess that's the way things work. They either fly out real quick, or real, real, real slow… I don't have any songs that are written in a medium amount of time. It's either like, "Boom. Wow. Holy shit." You know, chords, words, melody, all at once.
Or it's like, "Mmmm. Write the chords and the melody and one verse and then slave away at finishing it." Which like, you know, on that song "Talk to Me," I was just like, "Edward! Help!"
Q: The next song on the album is the other Tweedy-Bennett collaboration, "Venus Stopped the Train."
A: Yeah, that was Wilco garbage can. Go figure.
Q: When I saw you play this once at the Abbey Pub, you had made some comment about the weird chords or chord in it.
A: Yeah, it's bizarre.
Q: What is it exactly? Is it something you were just goofing around with on the keyboard and came up with?
A: You know what's weird? I actually wrote it on guitar. I wrote in on guitar in a hotel room in London. Even though the chords, very much so, are piano chords, you know? I may have kind of written in this hotel room in London. I remember recording it, because I'd just gotten my little MiniDisc recorder.
I remember sitting in front of the TV with the sound off and recording it with my little MiniDisc recorder. And I may have when I got it a piano, piano-itized the chords. 'Cause it kind of stuns me that I actually would have come up with those chords on a guitar. 'Cause they're not guitar-friendly. I mean, they're doable, but they're not guitar-friendly.
Q: They sound sort of like jazz chords. Is there a diminished chord in there?
A: Yeah, there's a diminished. There's this weird C sharp diminished, and then there's all sorts of stuff. There's like A flat-five dominant-seven third inversion. That's actually a chord in there. So yeah, there's weird shit.
Q: And did you do some of the words, or are the words all Jeff's?
A: No, Jeff’s. Let me think about that, yeah.
Q: Did Wilco actually play this song at some point?
A: No. Never. Nope. Jeff and I did a demo, and that's about it.
Q: And then what can you tell me about this particular recording of the song?
A: Well, actually, it's based on the Wilco demo. Which is really my demo, you know, my little eight-track demo. I think the only thing that remains at this point is the drum machine that kind of rears its ugly head during the little middle section. You can hear it for a second. You might not even be able to hear it.
Q: So everything else was redone?
A: Yeah, but it was one of those redone around the original demo. It's the same arrangement and stuff. But that song didn't have a bass guitar on it until, like, two minutes before we mixed it... We had this list of shit to do, and it was like, you know, "Sing one background vocal here. Sing one background vocal here." And we totally spaced out. Like, "Fuck, we never did the bass on that." So we were mixing it and Mike was like, "Uh, there's no bass on this." I was like, "Oh, yeah. Give me a bass, real quick."
It actually ended up being a really fun bass line. Doing a bass line after a song is all in shape – You know, typically you think of bass as something you lay down with drums, you know? As this rhythm section instrument. I don't know if this is rumor or truth, but... later-period Beatles stuff, Paul McCartney says that he started laying down the bass last, so he would have more shit to play off of. A beautiful example of that would maybe be "Something," you know? Where the bass line is just as hooky as the guitar or the vocal, you know? So I believe that. So that was an opportunity to do that, which was really fun.
Q: You did the bass on this?
A: Yeah, I think I played bass on everything on the record except "It Hurts" and "Whispers or Screams."
Q: And you said there's a standup bass on "Like a Photograph"?
A: Yeah, so there's three songs I don't play bass on.
Q: The next song is "California." What's the story behind that?
A: That's another song that could have been a ballad, but we decided to rock it up, a little. And kind of make it fairly grand by the time it gets to the bridge. It's also a song where I wanted to use a lot of instruments to obscure the fact that it's actually a very complicated song, you know? And by using other instruments to do lines and things, the dobro and the Mellotrons and the organ, the Rhodes... it actually obscures the fact that the song is not just relatively, but actually really complicated. Yet melodically, it kind of rolls along, you know?
Q: Yeah, I didn't really pick up on the fact that it's a complicated song.
A: That's a good thing. If you watched someone play it on acoustic guitar, you'd go, "Huh?" You'd just see them making all these chord changes. And so, I wanted to kind of blur over that with lines that moved under the chord changes, you know? So I think we got that. And you know, moving into the bridge and the bridge just gets huge.
Q: What are the lyrics to this song about?
A: I wrote it on John Stirratt's porch down in New Orleans… You know how weather – Well, your sense of smell is your most acute, you know? And I think your sense of weather or climate or temperature or temperature change or season change are primarily olfactory, you know? You just wake up one morning and walk outside and go, "This reminds me of this exact day 15 years ago." You know? Like, what the fuck? How can this weather and this weird combination of seven smells that you pick up when you walk out your door just hit you?
And that's what happened. I walked outside John's door and sat on the porch to have my cup of coffee, and I just, you know, whatever combination of smells that was happening that day in New Orleans, just like smacked in the face, you know, and reminded me of a particular day.
Q: And what was it reminding you of?
A: It's talking about a guy dumping a girl from an outsider, you know, from a third-person perspective. That's pretty much what it is. Someone looking back on a breakup they wish they hadn't instigated… a breakup they thought was going to solve all their problems, but didn't.
Then the chorus kind of says the way I was feeling that day. The chorus is just "It feels like California, but it's really N.L., LA." Which is "New Orleans, Louisiana" for those who can't make it out. (Laughs.)
But that was that, you know? But that's just a flash of a memory and it wrote itself really quickly. And the lyrics are third person, but they don't need to be. It was just easier that way.
Q: "Little White Cottage" is another one with Guthrie lyrics. Again, if you could just tell what was your reaction when you came across these particular words and why you picked this particular set of Guthrie lyrics to write some music for?
A: Some Woody lyrics more than others make you see his connection to contemporary songwriters. You know, like, "Holy shit, Neil Young could have written that." Or in this case, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen might have sat down and written that. So that was one of those lyrics where I just really saw Woody's connection to, just how contemporary he was…
And plus, I just think it's beautiful. It's this guy reminiscing, you know? Like, everybody's left him, but he still has his memories. It isn't necessarily too far off from something I would write, you know?
Q: Now, this is one of two songs where you switched from having you on the lead vocals to Ed.
A: Yeah, you had actually remarked how it was maybe in a register that was too high for me, and it was. And Ed had always wanted to sing it, too.
Q: So you relented and let him do it.
A: No, no. It was in too high of a key for me.
Q: And the same for "Venus"?
A: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.
Q: What kind of sound were you going for on "Little White Cottage" in terms of the instrumentation and the mix?
A: Well, I think it's just to stray not too far from what it needs... There's a few little weird things in there to keep the continuity with the rest of the record, you know? But other than that, it's fairly traditional.
Q: And you've got bells at the beginning of that, right? Or is that the end of the previous track?
A: It's just like a little funeral-slash-church bell thing.
Q: And then you close with "It Hurts." What's the story with that?
A: Doesn't that kind of say it all? I don't think that one needs explaining. (Chuckles.) Lyrically, at least. I know when and where I wrote it, you know, but that's about it. Thematically, it doesn't stray all that far from a lot of things I write.
Q: It has an interesting kind of long, drawn-out ending where it kind of breaks apart and you hear different sounds emerging.
A: Yeah, we could have cut it anywhere, but we just went ... "It's the last track, let's let it go."
Q: Overall, with this album were you trying to get a particular sound or theme to it or were you just considering it like a collection of songs you guys have done?
A: One situational thing we had to deal with was we had to sequence the record before we actually mixed, in order to get the artwork in. So the song sequence was decided in the absence of actually ever having heard it.
So, I don't know. I think song sequencing is important, and you can make a record sound more or less important or emphasize certain things over other things emotionally by sequencing it in different ways. And we may have not had the appropriate time to sit on it and experiment with different sequences.
But, you know, there is a sense in which we very strongly consider this Part 1 of a trilogy, you know? And these songs will have counterparts and complements on the upcoming two records, you know. So I didn't feel insanely strongly that we had to make a big statement with the sequence, you know? I think there's a sonic and lyrical consistency that ... lends itself to any sequence...
You can justify any – Once something is sequenced, you can justify it. You can go, "Well, see, this makes sense because the songs about this, and then see, it goes into a song about this." (Laughs.) So, you can just fuck with yourself. You can justify any song order. You can think it over to death. And then the next day... randomly put it in a computer and have the computer spit a new order for you randomly and you can find a way to justify that.
And I think we also had to realize we are living in the world of CD players, where if someone doesn't like a track, they just skip it. And the last time I encountered an album where I liked all 15 songs was never. So I don't expect everybody to like all 15 songs. Or to love all 15 songs. You know, hopefully, there's not one that’s so disgusting to them that they always skip it, like, run from the dining room into the living room just to skip it. But at the same time, I'm being realistic. I don't think everybody who listens to this record is going to love every one of the 15 songs.
Q: So are the songs that were on the rough mix but didn't make the cut this one, like "Junior" and –
A: "Junior" and "Curiosity," right? They will be on the next one. "Junior" is hard thematically to fit into anything. "Curiosity" could have fit on this. I think it'll pop up on the next.
And "Junior"'s going to have to pop up as the last track on Vol. 2 or 3. Or the first track, you know? But I don't think it can fit in the middle of anything, being what it is. It's my mom's favorite song, though. (Laughs.)
Q: Is that song based on any sort of – it's a funny story – (The narrator of "Junior" gets drunk and has his 8-year-old son drive him home from a bar.)
A: There's a story behind it. The story behind it is not the story told in it, though, you know... But that actually never happened.
Q: That's good to know.
A: But it's also one of my few, like, "Hey, it's a story" kind of songs, you know? I'm not big on the direct storytelling lyric, you know? I'm more into the indirect, emotional lyric. I think people generally get the gist of the emotion, you know? Really happy. (Laughs.)
Q: When I talked to Edward the other day he said you guys are planning to put an alternate, limited-release version of the album with all of the same songs but in more stripped-down or acoustic versions?
A: Yeah, and we've just got to find time to do it. We've just got to find an afternoon to sit down and do it. But these days, finding an afternoon is like fucking hard.
Q: Would those be new recordings, or do you have existing recordings where you can just remix it?
A: A combination. Some we may break down these songs to their bare elements. Some we'll record. Some, we're going to use old demos. Yeah, so those three things...
Q: And he said you're talking about calling it "Palace 1919"?
A: Yeah, a little inside joke there. Not so inside to people who have good record collections.
Q: Is that a particular record that you like, the one it's referring to?
Q: You told me before about the title "Palace at 4am." You'd come across this in an article about an art exhibit, was it?
A: Yeah, Giocametti, the sculptor.
Q: Was it just something where the name struck you as evocative –
A: Yeah, it just grabbed me, man, as being so visual and so beautiful. You know, the studio of course being the palace. You know, where all of the beautiful stuff is made and stored. And then every night, you walk away from it, hoping that when you come back the next day, all the beautiful stuff is still beautiful. It just reeked of late-night studio vibe...
Q: You've said before that if you had the money, you'd like to play some of these songs in concert with a band.
A: I'd love to.
Q: Ed mentioned that John Peacock's group might do some songs with you guys on the 20th.
A: Yes, we're going to try. We have limited time to rehearse, and I'm a picky bastard when it comes to – I don't like to schlop stuff together, you know? Everybody in Peacock's band is disgustingly talented, so we should be able to do it. But you know, if we can't, we can't. In other words, I'd rather play a good acoustic – a great acoustic version than a mediocre band version.
Q: Ed mentioned that you guys are going to do a Rockpile tribute.
A: Yeah, we're going to do a four-song Dave Edmunds/Nick Lowe thing, like Dave and Nick did the four-song Everly Brothers thing.
Q: Just because those guys are such a big influence?
A: Even if they're not influences – which they are – Subliminal Man – Even if they weren't influences, they're just fucking amazing. They are as important to me as the Everly Brothers were to them, you know?
Q: You anticipate a vinyl single?
A: We're talking about doing a 45, you know? But in reality, a 45, I think, not only costs more to make than a CD, I think it costs more to make than an album. So it's financially stupid, but cool.
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