Let's Do This Right

[chanman1128]

1. Ashes of American Flag

2. Pot Kettle Black

3. She's a Jar

4. Venus Stop the Train

5. Sunken Treasure

6. Poor Places

7. Radio Cure

8. Less Than You Think

9. Hell is Chrome

10. Summerteeth

11. A Magazine Called Sunset

12. Bob Dylan's 49th Beard

13. Remember the Mountain Bed

14. Wishful Thinking

15. Let Me Come Home

16. Misunderstood

17. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

18. Reservations

19. Outtasite (Outta Mind)

20. The Late Greats

 

 

did this real quick, close enough.

[jakobnicholas]

It's embarrassing all the great songs I DON'T have on my list. Here's mine:

 

 

1. Pieholden Suite

2. She's A Jar

3. At Least That's What You Said

4. Hell is Chrome

5. Fatal Wound

6. Venus Stop the Train

7. Sky Blue Sky (Lullaby for Rafters & Beams version)

8. Dash 7

9. Wreckroom

10. Always in Love

11. Lonely One

12. Ashes of American Flags

13. Solitaire

14. All The Same To Me

15. Hotel Arizona

16. Panthers (acoustic)

17. Black Eye

18. Hummingbird (Wilcobook)

19. Airline to Heaven

20. Magazine Called Sunset

[mtt_wojo]

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.

[mpolak21]

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’

 

Billy Bragg is given a sole co-writer credit on this song with Guthrie, however it's common knowledge or at least known by the hip-hop artist Common that he unfairly poached full credit from Bennett/Tweedy. Thus while we here at the Let's Do This Right thread give Billy Bragg a lifelong pass for anything short of murder because of Waiting For the Great Leap Forward alone, we do consider Another Man's Done Gone a Guthrie/Tweedy/Bennett/Bragg composition and it is thus eligible for this list.

 

Warm regards,

 

The Rules Committee.

[Shakey]

1. Lonely One

2. Radio King

3. Far Far Away

4. All the same to me

5. Sunken Treasure

6. Theologians

7. Not for the Season

8. Pecan Pie

9. Shot in the Arm

10. Must Be High

11. Via Chicago

12. Hotel Arizona

13. California Stars

14. Misunderstood

15. Handshake Drugs

16. Hoodoo Voodoo

17. Black Eye

18. Gun

19. She's a Jar

20. What Light

[jakobnicholas]

Billy Bragg is given a sole co-writer credit on this song with Guthrie, however it's common knowledge or at least known by the hip-hop artist Common that he unfairly poached full credit from Bennett/Tweedy. Thus while we here at the Let's Do This Right thread give Billy Bragg a lifelong pass for anything short of murder because of Waiting For the Great Leap Forward alone, we do consider Another Man's Done Gone a Guthrie/Tweedy/Bennett/Bragg composition and it is thus eligible for this list.

 

 

 

mtt_wojo says in the Top 20 Tweedy Songs thread that "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."

 

If this and what Common believes is all true, what sort of character is Billy Bragg?! I'm guessing the beautifull keyboards are all Jay. And Tweedy's voice and delivery and melody just KILLS. I remember reading it was done in the first take. Everyone knew it wasn't gonna get any better. Really an amazing song. Credit should read, "Guthrie/Tweedy/Bennett with inspiration from Billy Bragg".

 

"Waiting For the Great Leap Forward" is a good song, but a little too pie in the sky for me. A MUCH better song, in my opinion, is "Tank Park Salute".

[choo-choo-charlie]

Drone aside, I think "Less Than You Think" is one of Tweedy's best melodies [and one of John's best harmonies] and has excellent lyrics.

[Jesusetc84]

01. Jesus Etc

02. IATTBYH

03. Via Chicago

04. Poor Places

05. She's a Jar

06. Misunderstood

07. Spiders (Kidsmoke)

08. Sunken Treasure

09. Remember the Mountain Bed

10. Laminated Cat

11. A Shot in The Arm

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

[Dude]

Drone aside, I think "Less Than You Think" is one of Tweedy's best melodies [and one of John's best harmonies] and has excellent lyrics.

 

Agreed, I always loved the pre-drone versions floating around.

[Mr. Kinsley]

Before I unfurl the magnificence that is my list, I'd like to chime in with my $.02 on the rules:

- The Mermaid stuff is some of my favorite Tweedy work, but I really don't think it should count, since it seemed that what the magazine's list was focusing on was mainly lyrics.

- I draw no distinction between live/studio/Wilcobook/etc versions, because something like Panthers for instance, is still the same song. We aren't voting for performance, but rather for the writing.

 

 

Having said all of that, here's my list!

1. Poor Places - the most perfect song ever written

2. Radio King - Yes, indeed. Your music does fill my car. I'll take this song over anything. (Except possibly Poor Places.)

3. Sunken Treasure - Alienation, self-doubt and self-loathing never sounded so good.

4. Not for the Season - after Halloween this song is stuck in my head until... next Halloween!

5. Please Tell My Brothers - This song kills me; once it almost LITERALLY killed me. I'd had a discussion one Christmas about how my family is now spread out all over the country and I wasn't sure when, if ever, I'd spend another holiday with them. Then the first day back from winter break going to school this song comes on in the car and I totally lose it - on the curviest part of Benedict Canyon in the rain. I couldn't see a thing. Not sure how I got out of that one!

6. Heavy Metal Drummer - A wonderful ode to a time gone by.

7. Misunderstood - I'd like thank you all (who didn't vote for this song) for...

8. Jesus, etc. - Great song, but this has to be the laziest title of all time.

9. Hell is Chrome - As likely a vision of the afterlife as any I've ever heard, although I've always seen it as a stripped-to-the-bone metaphor for struggling with addiction.

10. I'm the Man Who Loves You

11. Handshake Drugs

12. Bull Black Nova

13. Theologians

14. IATTBYH

15. She's a Jar - If you tell me your jaw didn't hit the floor the first time you heard the last line, you're lying.

16. Panthers

17. How to Fight Lonliness - For extra added fun next time you listen to this song, sing along in an Elmer Fudd voice: "Dwag youw bwanket bwind-weeee."

18. One Wing

19. Sky Blue Sky - Nobody spotlights the seemingly banal details of a scene (rain, the marching band's uniforms, people who've had a few too many drinks) and fills them with this amount of meaning and weight.

20. You Are My Face

[anthony]

1. Poor Places

2. Sunken Treasure

3. How to Fight Lonliness

4. Jesus, etc.

5. Ashes of American Flags

6. IATTBYH

7. Hell is Chrome

8. Via Chicago

9. She's a Jar

10. Radio Cure

11. ALTWYS

12. Kamera

13. Muzzle of Bees

14. Theologians

15. Acuff Rose

16. Not for the Season

17. Solitaire

18. You Are My Face

19. Spiders (kidsmoke)

20. A Shot in the Arm

 

(i did not include MA - figured to count it would need words & music)

[mpolak21]

Hi everyone. If you didn't get a chance to read my very long-winded opening. Essentially anything Tweedy got a songwriting credit for and sang (just to clarify that you can't vote for Whiskey Bottle even though Jeff did get a credit for that song) is fair game. If you prefer not to vote for the MA songs because of your own personal preferences and guidelines that is more than all right with me, but please note that you can. The best of the Mermaid sessions is as good or better than anything Wilco has put out and thus I feel people should be able to vote for it. Elton John isn't any less of a songwriter because he didn't write the lyrics to any of his songs, he is for putting out Candle in The Wind every ten years, but that's a debate for another thread.

 

--Mike

[Mr. Kinsley]

Mike,

What are the rules on song versions? Are you going to differentiate between a studio and live version? Since we're voting on the writing isn't which version of the performance one likes of little consequence? Besides, the live version of, say, Via Chicago has changed dramatically over the years.

 

Also, isn't Laminated Cat really the same as Not for the Season? Is a vote for one a vote for both?

 

(Aren't you glad you started this? )

[fortuleo]

Mike, does Jeff have to sing lead on the song ? I mean, Listen Joe ????? And frankly, I feel bad about doing this a mere few days before we all have a chance to listen to the Seven Worlds Collide album, in which I bet we'll get a few more contenders for the list. I mean, Let's do this right, indeed !

[mpolak21]

Mike,

What are the rules on song versions? Are you going to differentiate between a studio and live version? Since we're voting on the writing isn't which version of the performance one likes of little consequence? Besides, the live version of, say, Via Chicago has changed dramatically over the years.

 

Also, isn't Laminated Cat really the same as Not for the Season? Is a vote for one a vote for both?

 

(Aren't you glad you started this? )

 

General in the Wilco Army,

 

My thoughts are the same as yours on this matter. Yes, over time a lot of these songs have changed between studio and live versions, but ultimately at their core it's still the same basic song with a different arrangement. We can get into the definitive versions of all of these songs later, but right now if you're voting a song you're voting for it in all its incarnations. A vote for Not For The Season is a vote for Laminated Cat is a vote for Not For The Season (that sentence also made my head hurt).

 

If you'd like to distinguish what you're favorite version of said song is that's great for the record and the general discussion, but as of know with the exception of Let Me Come Home (also available as an instrumental on the YHF Demos, which I do consider to be different) and the Sesame Street Outtasite (just to make it clear that we don't necessarily support this deviation) when I am tallying I don't plan to make distinctions.

 

Mike, does Jeff have to sing lead on the song ? I mean, Listen Joe ????? And frankly, I feel bad about doing this a mere few days before we all have a chance to listen to the Seven Worlds Collide album, in which I bet we'll get a few more contenders for the list. I mean, Let's do this right, indeed !

 

Jeff singing the lead vocal is just a general rule of thumb. For instance I am not really sure it's fair to let people vote for So Long or the aforementioned Whiskey Bottle. If there's any confusion come to me with what you want to vote for and we can decide.

 

Tweedy wrote three songs on the Seven Worlds Collide Album. The one with Johnny Marr is available on the concert that anyone with google can find and download. You Never Know is eligible once we get it cleared with George Harrison's attorneys. There's one more Tweedy song on it that you'll be able to vote for the next time we do this list or even this round if that thing leaks before I decide to close the thread.

 

--Mike

[Guest Runaway Jim]

the Sesame Street Outtasite

 

Please note that on my list, I am referring to the Disc One version. Also note that the disc one version is Outtasite (Outta Mind) and the disc two version is Outta Mind (Outtasite), technically.

[mpolak21]

Please note that on my list, I am referring to the Disc One version. Also note that the disc one version is Outtasite (Outta Mind) and the disc two version is Outta Mind (Outtasite), technically.

 

Thanks for the clarification. Thus far if you vote for that song I assume you mean the disc one version unless otherwise noted.

 

--Mike

[fortuleo]

If there's any confusion come to me with what you want to vote for and we can decide.

 

Well, what about "Listen Joe", on 'Another Fine Day" ?

[jokin' dealer]

1. Handshake Drugs

2. Monday

3. Not for the Season

4. Outtasite (Outta Mind)

5. Shot in the Arm

6. A Magazine Called Sunset

7. Box Full of Letters - The song that got me hooked on Wilco way back when. Mostly because my live-in girlfriend at the time had a box full of letters, from another dude. Maybe I should thank him. I think I got the better end of the deal.

8. Pot Kettle Black

9. We've Been Had

10. I'm Always In Love

11. Casino Queen

12. Kingpin

13. Gun

14. Red Eyed and Blue

15. I Got You (at the end of the century) - How could 1 not follow the other?

16. War on War

17. Poor Places

18. Late Greats

19. The Long Cut

20. Misunderstood

 

What can I say. I like "easy rockers".

[mpolak21]

Well, what about "Listen Joe", on 'Another Fine Day" ?

 

That one's fine, go ahead and vote for it.

 

--Mike

[Mr. Kinsley]

General in the Wilco Army,

 

My thoughts are the same as yours on this matter. Yes, over time a lot of these songs have changed between studio and live versions, but ultimately at their core it's still the same basic song with a different arrangement. We can get into the definitive versions of all of these songs later, but right now if you're voting a song you're voting for it in all its incarnations. A vote for Not For The Season is a vote for Laminated Cat is a vote for Not For The Season (that sentence also made my head hurt).

 

If you'd like to distinguish what you're favorite version of said song is that's great for the record and the general discussion, but as of know with the exception of Let Me Come Home (also available as an instrumental on the YHF Demos, which I do consider to be different) and the Sesame Street Outtasite (just to make it clear that we don't necessarily support these deviation) when I am tallying I don't plan to make distinctions.

--Mike

 

At ease.

Thank you for clarifying.

DISSS-missed!

[fortuleo]

1/ Jesus etc.

2/ Remember the Mountain Bed

3/ Hummingbird

4/ I’ll Fight

5/ Someday Soon

6/ How to Fight Loneliness

7/ Black Eye

8/ When the Roses Bloom Again

9/ Either Way

10/ New Madrid

11/ Summerteeth

12/ I’m the Man Who Loves You

13/ Forget the Flowers

14/ Please Tell My Brother

15/ Handshake Drugs

16 / Deeper Down

17/ Ashes of American Flag

18/ Company in My Back

19/ She’s A Jar

20/ Radio King

 

I finally decided that Jeff had to sing lead. You need to have clear rules to be able to sleep at night.

[LouisvilleGreg]

Damn, I've been working on this for awhile now. I had no idea how hard it would be, but I finally came up with a list that I'm happy with (for tonight anyway!) A few observations about my list: I like old Jeff more than newer Jeff, but not by much. If I were to rank the top 50, newer Jeff might edge out older Jeff. I really love "Being There" and 2 others from BT very nearly made the cut, as did "Bull Black Nova." It may with more time. I picked some songs for the lyrics, some for the music, some for what they meant for me and what was going on in my life when they came out and some for the emotional punch. Anyhow I'm rambling. I really love lists.

 

20. Screen Door

19. Cars Can't Escape

18. Spiders

17. Via Chicago

16. The Lonely 1

15. Remember The Mountainbed

14. Pot Kettle Black

13. We've Been Had

12. Not For The Season

11. Far, Far Away

10. When The Roses Bloom Again

9. SummerTeeth

8. Theologians

7. War on War

6. Misunderstood

5. I Can't Keep From Talking

4. New Madrid

3. Radio King

2. I Got You

1. Gun

[mpolak21]

Bumping this thread in hopes we can more some votes for this thing. Polls will be probably open for another two weeks.

 

--Mike

[W(TF)]

20 is really tough.....I don't think I can do it. 30 maybe, not 20.

 

All I know for sure is that Screen Door wouldn't make my top 100.