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Top 20 Jeff Tweedy Songs


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I've said it before (I think) but I don't understand the vehement hate for Shake it Off. I realize some people find the song annoying (I don't), but do you guys truly think the lyrics are bad? I think they're great. I'm not saying it's a better song than IATTBYH. I'm just saying.

 

I'm standing by my July 16th prediction of Ashes as #1.

 

Yeah, people really hate that song. I can see how the melody may alienate people, but I think the lyrics are excellent:

 

Sunlight angles on

A wooden floor at dawn

A ceiling fan is on

Chopping up my dreams

 

 

I dig it.

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“The ashtray says you were up all night/ when you went to bed, with you’re darkest mind/You’ve changed.”

 

Gah! This your/you're thing is plaguing American Songwriter.

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Me too.

 

This is a mystery to me as well. People complain that SBS is Wilco playing it safe. And yet there's some nice little dissonance going on in Shake It Off, and everybody likes to pile on the song. I'm sure this isn't quite the paradox it appears, that there's a good reason for it. But as a big fan of the album and that song, it confuses me.

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Guest Runaway Jim

#2 - Ashes of American Flags - http://www.americansongwriter.com/2009/08/the-top-20-jeff-tweedy-songs-2-ashes-of-american-flags/

 

Does that mean #1 is Misunderstood?

 

How is "I know I would die, if I could come back new" not the key lyric? It might be the most key lyric of any of Tweedy's songs.

 

I would guess it could possibly be Via Chicago or Poor Places, but probably Misunderstood.

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i don't think via chicago should be #1, but it definitely deserves to be in tweedy's top 20. that is way too big of a song to be left out of a list like this. i think it's the only possible song left.

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anything seems possible with this douchebag. so far, he's left off a number of songs deserving to be on the list (at least two of these three: Misunderstood, Poor Places, Via Chicago) but yet has HMD, Wilco (the song), Promising and I Can't Keep From Talking on here. Ridiculous.

 

I still hope it's Outtasite (Outta Mind).

 

What's wrong with I Can't Keep From Talking? That's a fantastic song. :hmm 'That's Not the Issue' on the other hand doesn't deserve to be within 1,000 yards of any top 20.

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Guest Runaway Jim

What's wrong with I Can't Keep From Talking? That's a fantastic song. :hmm 'That's Not the Issue' on the other hand doesn't deserve to be within 1,000 yards of any top 20.

 

Nothing "wrong" with I Can't Keep From Talking, just nowhere near a Top 20 song for me.

 

I love That's Not the Issue. Top 20? No, but I like it as his nod to A.M.

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I really don't think this guys list made the grade. I agree with some of his choices but the placement for some songs is absolutely atrocious so I decided to make my own list. I debated whether or not to put up the 'Mermaid Avenue' stuff but decided that it deserves to be up here. Without Jeff (and Jay Bennett), these songs wouldn't have come to life. They are absolutely beautiful and are some of the best things Jeff has ever touched. Hope you enjoy:

 

1.Sunken Treasure: ‘Music is my savior/I was maimed by rock & roll/I was tamed by rock & roll/

I got my name…from rock and roll’

 

2.Poor Places: ‘And it makes no difference to me how they cried all over overseas/when it’s hot in the poor places tonight…I’m not going outside’

 

3.Jesus, etc.: ‘Tall buildings shake, voices escape carrying sad, sad songs/tuned to chords strung down your cheeks, bitter melodies turning your orbit around’

 

4.Ashes of American Flags: ‘All my lies are always wishes, you know I would die if I could come back new’

 

5.Via Chicago: ‘I dreamed about killing you again last night and it felt alright to me…’

 

6.I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: ‘I am an American aquarium drinker/I assassin down the avenue…’

 

7.A Shot In The Arm: 'Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm/Something in my veins, bloodier than blood’

 

8.Misunderstood: ‘I’d like to thank you all for nothing at all’

 

9.Remember The Mountain Bed: ‘…people laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die’

 

10.Cars Can’t Escape ‘…there were reasons for you to love me but I gave you none’

 

11.California Stars ‘…they hang like grapes on vines that shine and warm the lovers glass like a friendly wine’

 

12.She’s A Jar: ‘…a pretty war with feeling hid/you know she begs me not to hit her’

 

13.Please Tell My Brother: ‘…and as I travel from coast to coast/I feel your love and I feel your ghost’

 

14.Impossible Germany: ‘But this is what love is for/To be out of place/gorgeous and alone/face to face’

 

15.At Least That’s What You Said: ‘…I thought it was cute for you to kiss my purple black eye/even though I caught it from you/I still think we’re serious’

 

16.One Wing: ‘…one wing will never ever fly, dear/neither yours or mine, I fear we can only wave goodbye’

 

17.Gun: ‘Don’t tell me which way I ought to run or what good I could do anyone because my heart, it was a gun but it’s unloaded now’

 

18.You Are My Face: ‘I have no idea how this happens/all of my maps have been overthrown/happenstance has changed my plans so many times that my heart has been outgrown/Now everybody’s feeling all alone/I can’t tell you who I am’

 

19.Laminated Cat: ‘Summer comes and gravity undoes you/you’re happy because of the lovely way the sunshine bends’

 

20.Another Man’s Done Gone: ‘Well I don’t know/I may go down or up or anywhere/But I feel like this scribbling might stay’

 

And that's my list. Hope you guys like it.

 

Close calls: (by order of release) New Madrid, The Long Cut, Forget The Flowers, Someone Else’s Song, No Poetry, One By One, Pieholden Suite, Magazine Called Sunset, Handshake Drugs…there’s so many. A list of just 20 is so hard to do.

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You can copy and paste your list into the thread called "Let's Do This Right", where ViaChicagoans are gonna tally their own Top 20 list. Good lyric choices.

 

Another Man's Done Gone IS fantastic, but I believe Billy Bragg wrote that song.

 

 

Thanks. I posted it up there.

 

From what I read in the Wilco book, Jay basically said that Billy came up with three chords to the songs. Jay added more embellishments to the chords and sequence and Jeff came up with this beautiful melody. Basically a group collaboration, yet when the album came out, it was only listed to Billy. Apparently he thought the three chords he came up with were the 'germ' of the song.

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From what I read in the Wilco book, Jay basically said that Billy came up with three chords to the songs. Jay added more embellishments to the chords and sequence and Jeff came up with this beautiful melody. Basically a group collaboration, yet when the album came out, it was only listed to Billy. Apparently he thought the three chords he came up with were the 'germ' of the song.

 

 

That may be correct. And if it is.....well, crap!....now I may need to re-do my list.

 

It's my opinion that Another Man Done Gone is the best track on either Mermaid Ave. disc.

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I predict the Number one will be Just a Kid (just kidding) -- but since his choice from AM was That's Not the Issue and not Pick Up the Change, I can't predict where he'll go, I thought it was going to be Ashes, cos in the same issue of the magazine it's voted one of the best songs of the last 25 years. Whatever.

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Guest Runaway Jim

Finally a decent write up. It exceeded one paragraph!

 

I dig it being number one. It's a top 10 for me, but it probably was the song that first made me LOVE wilco, so sure, why not no. 1?

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My Personal top 20:

 

01. Jesus, Etc

02. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

03. Via Chicago

04. Poor Places

05. She's a Jar

06. Misunderstood

07. Remember The Mountain Bed

08. Spiders (Kidsmoke)

09. Sunken Treasure

10. A Shot in The Arm

11. Laminated Cat

12. Wishful Thinking

13. Ashes of American Flags

14. Reservations

15. Can't Stand It

16. I'm Always in Love

17. Impossible Germany

18. Bull Black Nova

19. New Madrid

20. A Magazine Called Sunset

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My Personal top 20:

 

01. Jesus, Etc

02. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

03. Via Chicago

04. Poor Places

05. She's a Jar

06. Misunderstood

07. Remember The Mountain Bed

08. Spiders (Kidsmoke)

09. Sunken Treasure

10. A Shot in The Arm

11. Laminated Cat

12. Wishful Thinking

13. Ashes of American Flags

14. Reservations

15. Can't Stand It

16. I'm Always in Love

17. Impossible Germany

18. Bull Black Nova

19. New Madrid

20. A Magazine Called Sunset

 

This is a much better list.

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