I'll Fight?

[jc4prez]

I haven't gotten to read the lyrics, which a lot of times solidifies my idea of a song. When just listening over and over, parts creep in kind of like osmosis. The song never struck me as literal. I always thought of it as a kind of melodramatic devotion to one person. The Jesus imagery is borrowed to give a kind of hyperbolic weight to the idea. Leonard Cohen has done the same thing with Christian imagery, borrowed it for personal psychology, romance etc.

 

I don't mind the christian imagery, its everywhere in our culture. What bothers me is the pro-war nature of the song in a time where we don't need people stepping up to say "i'll fight".

[MattZ]

I don't mind the christian imagery, its everywhere in our culture. What bothers me is the pro-war nature of the song in a time where we don't need people stepping up to say "i'll fight".

 

I think the song is anti-war.

[bleedorange]

I almost read it as being neither pro- nor anti-war. The narrator of the song seems to be pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. Although, I do think it paints the person he is "replacing" in a fairly negative light, as someone who advances the notion of war but would never do the fighting himself. I think the religious imagery emphasizes the inherent contradiction of using religion as an excuse for war.

 

Or something like that.

[MattZ]

We send our naive and idealistic youngsters to fight our wars for us (often in the name of religion) and we forget about them or take them for granted.

 

Just my opinion, obv.

 

On a somewhat related point, someone wished me a happy Memorial Day last Friday. This is one screwed up country we live in. I know that every generation thinks it's the worst, but still...

[mfwahl]

I saw this song as more about class struggle and hypocrisy. I guess it could be seen as anti-war (the more desperate people of our society fight wars that are designed by the more fortunate).

 

As for the religious imagery, it's definitely not condoning war in the name of religion. The guy who gets to stay at home "rises each day as planned" and "his will is command" but when he goes to church every Sunday, he's "alone and lost" and "in his soul will not be free." Meanwhile the guy who goes to war is dying "like Jesus on the cross, my faith cannot be tossed, and my life will not be lost if my love comes across." It seems to more call out people who support wars in the name of religion as hypocrites.

[danelectro]

Like many of Jeff's songs the lyrics are somewhat ambiguous. I assume it's intentional and I like that, having to put a little thought into it or being able to interpret it in a way personal to me is a good thing. As for the song I like it, it's one of the stand out tracks on the album for me.

[Happiechick]

It is so interesting to see how everyone hears a song, one of the great things about VC. Anyway, I have not taken the time to actually read the lyrics anywhere, but when I heard this song for the very first time, I assumed it was about a combination of things, maybe not one subject exactly. Maybe I am in too much of kiddie mode at this point in my life, but sometimes I hear it to be about the intense love that comes with parenthood? I am curious if anyone else picked up on that. I really like the song, (and like some others mentioned above, I really like When The Roses Bloom as well), but some of the lyrics remind me of the deep love you feel for your children. Or maybe a soldier or someone who is gone a lot and their child wakes up from bad dreams at night and asks for their dad or mom. I just think it's about a lot of heavy topics, but yet a happy beat, at least a happier beat than On and On and On.

[DAngerer09]

they should have followed this song, or preceded it, with Let's Fight (the song they played while road testing SBS material).

[holyshit]

My kids are 17 and 20, but I picked up on the possibility of a parenthood/family angle, too. Jeff is too savvy a musician to have accidently recorded a song so similar to "On and On and On" for their very next album, so I'm not surprised to find thematic links between the two, as well. I love his lyrics' ambiguity and how they bend to my moods and experiences---or yours---but in the end, it's all about the love. I think some group called the Beatles made that point a few times, as well.

[Jesusetc84]

I don't mind the christian imagery, its everywhere in our culture. What bothers me is the pro-war nature of the song in a time where we don't need people stepping up to say "i'll fight".

 

I don't see the song as pro-war at all.

 

Maybe I'm taking the lyrics too literally but to me "I'll Fight" is a comment on class differences. A well to do man pays off a poor man to take his place in the army; this has happened a lot through out history. The poor man dies, and the rich man lives.

 

It's really a pretty poignant comment on the fairness of our wars. For the most part it's not the blood of the rich that is spilling; they will grow up to have grandchildren, and die happy. The people fighting our wars are those who can't afford to do anything else, and all they get for it, as I'll Fight states is have "a place where (their) body can be layed."

 

I don't think it's fair to call this song pro-war at all. I think it's very anti-war, and is one of the better lyrics on this album.

[Synthesizer Patel]

'i'll fight' is this album's 'you are my face' in that it's head and shoulders above the other songs on offer. the only down side about it is that when i listen to it i often end up thinking about how the album would have been great if all the songs had been as good as this, and if it wasn't on there maybe i could enjoy the other songs a bit more.

 

was this one of the songs that wasn't played live before recording? i don't keep up with that sort of thing, but if it was then maybe the band should take this approach to all the songs on the next album - cos it's so much fresher sounding than the rest.

[Scalzunfield]

'i'll fight' is this album's 'you are my face' in that it's head and shoulders above the other songs on offer. the only down side about it is that when i listen to it i often end up thinking about how the album would have been great if all the songs had been as good as this, and if it wasn't on there maybe i could enjoy the other songs a bit more.

 

Really? Wow, you and I have a completely different view on this song. You Are My Face STILL stands head and shoulders above every song on THIS album (as do Impossible Germany and Side With The Seeds).

 

I'll Fight is horribly repetitive and musically on the more bland side for a Wilco song as well. There's nothing even resembling a riff and, as previously mentioned, seems to hijack/reuse some previous Wilco melodies over again in a much more subdued way.

 

On & On is head and shoulders above I'll Fight and I'm not even sure I love On & On.

 

I still see this song as completing the "worst Wilco trilogy" of Country Disappeared>Solitaire>I'll Fight and because of that I continue to feel the same way about this album I felt about U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind": I'm sure there's a great EP in here somewhere but all the filler is killing it. The only track I've continually gone back to on the second half of the album is "Sonny Feeling" which is starting to feel more and more like a more relaxed "Walken" to me.

[mpolak21]

The only track I've continually gone back to on the second half of the album is "Sonny Feeling" which is starting to feel more and more like a more relaxed "Walken" to me.

 

And thankfully unlike Walken the lyrics of SF don't sound like they were written in five minutes.

 

--Mike

[hottuna]

Yeah, it saves the second half of SBS imo. I'll fight is like a bad version of on and on and on, completely lacks the emotion of the latter. Not a highlight at all.

 

yep. My thoughts exactly. Recycled but in a bad way. A few of those lines seem really crowbarred in there.

[Jesusetc84]

Really? Wow, you and I have a completely different view on this song. You Are My Face STILL stands head and shoulders above every song on THIS album (as do Impossible Germany and Side With The Seeds).

 

I'll Fight is horribly repetitive and musically on the more bland side for a Wilco song as well. There's nothing even resembling a riff and, as previously mentioned, seems to hijack/reuse some previous Wilco melodies over again in a much more subdued way.

 

On & On is head and shoulders above I'll Fight and I'm not even sure I love On & On.

 

I still see this song as completing the "worst Wilco trilogy" of Country Disappeared>Solitaire>I'll Fight and because of that I continue to feel the same way about this album I felt about U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind": I'm sure there's a great EP in here somewhere but all the filler is killing it. The only track I've continually gone back to on the second half of the album is "Sonny Feeling" which is starting to feel more and more like a more relaxed "Walken" to me.

 

See we just don't agree on anything.

 

"Country Disappeared" to me is a great song. Hearing that reminds me of the first time I heard "I Shall Be Released" by The Band or "Helpless" by CSN&Y. Really classic, genuinely moving stuff. Jeff's vocal delivery is flawless. He comes across as a Mid-Western version of John Lennon circa 1970. It's a really beautiul transcendental moment to me.

 

"You Are My Face" on the other hand reminds me of the bad side of 1970s A.M. rock radio. It starts off as a sort of lite rock staple, something safe and soft enough for Seals and Croft to sing, and then transforms into a bad Little Feat jam, with a terrible white boy funk boogie rock feel.

 

I'd probably rank EVERY song on W(TA) above "You Are My Face."

[RainDogToo]

See we just don't agree on anything.

 

"Country Disappeared" to me is a great song. Hearing that reminds me of the first time I heard "I Shall Be Released" by The Band or "Helpless" by CSN&Y. Really classic, genuinely moving stuff. Jeff's vocal delivery is flawless. He comes across as a Mid-Western version of John Lennon circa 1970. It's a really beautiul transcendental moment to me.

 

"You Are My Face" on the other hand reminds me of the bad side of 1970s A.M. rock radio. It starts off as a sort of lite rock staple, something safe and soft enough for Seals and Croft to sing, and then transforms into a bad Little Feat jam, with a terrible white boy funk boogie rock feel.

 

I'd probably rank EVERY song on W(TA) above "You Are My Face."

 

Yep, I completely agree! Though, don

[jc4prez]

Its funny how wrong a first impression can be. When I herd "I'll fight, I'll kill, etc." I only herd the call to duty and immediately assumed that the one waking in the middle of the night was the dying soldiers lover not someone whose place on the front lines had been taken by a volunteer. And I herd the place to be surrounded by your peers as a military cemetery. I won't be surprised if many interpret it that way.

 

Thanks for helping me see past my initial assumptions.

[stagerug]

Here is my know-it-all opinion. I would bet my left nut that this is a narrated song from the point-of-view of a Civil War Soldier that had been paid, his legally allowable, $300 fee to replace a citizen that had been drafted but did not want to fight. The Cilvil War was the first war with a Federal Draft, and this allowable pay off saved the lives of many children of wealthy land-owners, sending the less fortunate off to do the fighting. The wealthy draftees, some of them at least, would even make posters declaring the offer and a story of why they could not go to war and post them in town.

 

With, of course, the obvious undertones of it having been a rich man's war, the bravery of our soldiers, the classes, the inner war that the drafted citizen will have to fight due to his cowardice, parallels to many of the same shades of socio-economics that still exist in our military/wars, and so-on. Hence the original, or alternative name of the song, "Conscript"...meaning draft.

 

That is it. An interesting story, based in fact and history, that allows the listener to take from it what he/she connects to. That is what great lyrics do, and Jeff does so well. That is why, to me, regardless of the "On and On and On" comparisons that I disagree with, this is one of my favorite songs on the new album.

 

$.02

[H.Stone]

I'll Fight is also one of my favorites on the album. I don't understand Jim DeRogatis's reference to it as an "annoying sing-song toss-off."

 

I especially like

 

And you'll sing to yourself

The rising, falling melody

That you could never read

Without the choir's lead

[Preferred B]

Yeah, I know that when people tell others on here that they should try listening to a song again, or that they "don't get it," it usually takes about five minutes for someone to come along with accusations of condescension. But seriously, DeRo?

[Ghost of Electricity]

 

 

I still see this song as completing the "worst Wilco trilogy" of Country Disappeared>Solitaire>I'll Fight

 

 

whatever.

[halloweenhead]

Hey everyone, I don't post much at all, I usually just lurk around reading but I would like to hear people's thoughts on I'll Fight. I personally find it to be one of my favorites on the new album. Just beautiful....

 

You will steer your life and die old in bed at home

surrounded by your peers without suffering or fear

grandchildren far and near and none will shed a tear

for their love no longer here...

 

These are some of my favorite lyrics tweedy has written.

 

I don't know if anyone has any insight on the song, I am not sure if he is talking about himself, to me it sounds like it's about someone going off to war, so that their wife/significant other can live at home in peace.

[gogo]

Hey, congrats on de-lurking yourself!

 

I've merged your thread into this older one, because some people here had some really great insights, and they may want to re-visit the topic now.

 

[bobbob1313]

I think there are too many references to love for this to be about a poor man Taking a rich man's place in war, though there are obvious allusions to that, as well. I think it is being written for a couple of people, not just one.

 

In one verse, he makes reference to being paid, and in the very next talks about 'the love no longer here'.

 

I don't thinK it offers one true answer.

 

It could be about the narrator making a decision to fight for a lover who obviously doesn't feel as strongly about him, thus the 'you'll feel it in your heart, but not for very long.'

 

I somehow feel like this and 'sonny feeling' might be related, with the 'two seperate fates' being this one and the one expressed in the song (Avoiding the fight and flying to Amsterdam), though I don't really understand 'sonny feeling' either, so I'm probably way off.

[learnhowtosteer]

My feeling is that Tweedy sounds a little exhausted on this one. It's a problem that's not confined to this song in particular, but the melody isn't as sharply defined as on my favorite Wilco tunes. It's just sort of neither here nor there.