This Here Boogie

I saw Wilco in Vicar Street recently, and was very impressed. I landed just as they were starting into this number, which is the first song off their Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album, which sort of pushed Wilco from alt.country or Americana cultdom into the mainstream. There’s an interesting story behind the making of this album that’s dealt with in the documentary with the same name as this song - if you like Wilco (or Spinal Tap moments) it’s worth a watch.

This song is one of the best album-openers of them all, up there with ‘Airbag’, ‘Sunday Morning’, ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ and the other rightly-revered Track Ones. The song blurs into focus with what sounds like the revving of an engine that segues into ringing bells, the metronomic clicking of a drum, and some piano, before Jeff Tweedy’s voice groans the lines:

“I am an American aquarium drinker,
I assassin down the avenue…”

One of the best opening lines in a song ever. The lyrical theme of this song is of alcohol and feelings for a woman. While many of the lyrics are oblique, there’s an obvious feeling that the narrator is trying to decipher his feelings for someone, and that the drinking he’s doing isn’t proving to be any help.

Despite the melancholic and highly personal theme, the music is actually quite charming. The acoustic guitar is insistent, pushing the song on when at times it’s on the verge of collapsing. Also, there’s a really nice piece played halfway through the song, that moves the musical context firmly into good-ole-boy country ‘n’ western territory.

I’ve tried to find a studio version of the song on YouTube, but to no avail. If you can, download the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album, or even just this song. A lot of the stuff on this song can’t faithfully be reproduced live, but here’s a great live version of the song anyway.

Last 5 posts by Dave

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 5:00 am and is filed under Acoustic, Alternative / Indie, Rock. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.