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The Top Twenty Tweedy Songs As Picked By VC


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Mr. mpolak21, can we see the point totals for the top 20? I'm curious how much of a lead the songs had on eachother, i.e. if Poor Places was an overwhelming #1 or if it barely sneaked past Ashes, etc.

 

1.) Poor Places - 589

2.) Ashes of American Flags- 537

3.) Remember The Mountain Bed-535

4.) I Am Trying To Break Your Heart-526

5.) Muzzle of Bees-515

6.) Jesus, etc.- 510

7.) Misunderstood-508

8.) New Madrid-500

9.) Laminated Cat/Not For The Season- 497

10.) Sunken Treasure-489

11.) Via Chicago- 473

12.) Gun- 460

13.) She's A Jar- 448

14.) Hell Is Chrome-421

15.) Handshake Drugs- 416

16.) Pot Kettle Black- 414

17.) Chinese Apple- 378

18.) At Least That's What You Said- 373

19.) Radio King- 365

20.) Pieholden Suite- 362

 

The next five...

 

21.) Spiders- 361

22.) I'm Always In Love- 358

23.) You Are My Face-357

24.) Magazine Called Sunset- 352

25.) Cars Can't Escape- 348

 

--Mike

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I for one am totally cracking up at the fact that we are complaining about where songs ranked on the list that WE voted on. It really does show what the best thing about Top 20 lists is: the arguing afterwards!

 

:cheekkiss

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Thanks for compiling all this. It's a pretty great list.

 

Of the 25 songs, 20 are Wilco songs. Of the other 5:

 

- 2 Uncle Tupelo (Gun, New Madrid)

- 1 Golden Smog (Radio King)

- 2 Loose Fur (Laminated Cat, Chinese Apple)

 

 

That's a fair list of songs, though they're not my personal favorite Tweedy songs in those bands. (I think Wreckroom is his most INTERESTING Loose Fur song....even if maybe not as lyrically great as the 2 on the list).

 

Were there other non-Wilco songs that rated high?

 

To me, a Top 20 Tweedy song list MUST include a March, 1992 song. And I think All the Same to Me is one of his more unique songs...the lyrics don't sound much at all like a Tweedy song...but they're great. And I always loved the sound of his voice on this track.

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Thanks, Mr mpolak21, for compiling this great list. Makes me want to re-consider some of my (lame?) choices and also listen to songs that I had pretty much written off ("Muzzle of Bees", "Hell is Chrome"). So, as they say, it's all good. Thx, again.

 

P.S. Still love "Hotel Arizona"

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So, what's remember the mountain bed doing on the 3d spot? Solid song for sure but nowhere near Tweedy's all time top 20 actually.

On the other hand, the list's number 1 is the same as mine, my second favorite ranks at 5 (what's up with the criticism for muzzle of bees in this thread anyway?). So no reason to complain I guess. :)

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  • 7 months later...

Dont know if this was pointed out already but shouldnt Remember the Mountain Bed be eliminated from the list?

From the original few posts it looked like a list based on songwriting and lyrics as well as music.

 

 

Now if we were compiling a Woody list.....

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Guest Speed Racer

Dont know if this was pointed out already but shouldnt Remember the Mountain Bed be eliminated from the list?

From the original few posts it looked like a list based on songwriting and lyrics as well as music.

 

The original thread where Mike took people's votes outlined the parameters, and Guthrie songs were accepted. As far as I'm concerned, Tweedy's voice makes that song. If it was anyone else, it wouldn't mean as much to me.

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Okay, if you weren't around here last summer, there was this pretty hacky American Songwriter feature on the best twenty Tweedy songs. And it created like a 25 page thread about people complaining about how idiotic the list was, reading through that I felt inspired that rather than complaining about it, we could just make a better list. I opened a voting thread for about a month, and a lot of people voted on it, and these were the tallies. There was no editorial input on my part. I didn't break ties, I didn't count all the votes for songs I didn't like as halves (though if I Thought I Held You got any action, I might have), 49 people voted, these were the results.

 

I felt like Tweedy and Bennett contributed a lot to those Guthrie lyrics, and brought them to life, and I wanted to allow them into the pool, and a lot of people voted for Remember The Mountain Bed.

 

--Mike

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Thanks for the clarification on the Guthrie tunes.... Tweedy lyrics or not, I long for the days of 1999-2000 when they'd play like 8 or 10 Guthrie songs per show. Someone on here took a dig at What Light earlier in the thread? Is that heavily disliked? I thought for sure it'd become a concert regular. Longtime Wilco fan here but I don't spend much time on the board, don't have my finger on the pulse of the wilco community...

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Since you mention it, when that 'american songwriter' list came out I got to working on my own, painstakingly these were the last songs standing; nota bene purely based on the songwriting merits (I left out any Guthrie stuff). Quite a few overlaps with the VC list, especially the top ten is rock solid from where I'm standing.

 

01.Via Chicago

02.I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

03.Jesus, etc.

04.Ashes of American Flags

05.Pieholden Suite

06.Reservations

07.Hummingbird

08.Sunken Treasure

09.Misunderstood

10.Radio Cure

11.A Shot in the Arm

12.Handshake Drugs

13.She’s a Jar

14.Laminated Cat

15.Black Eye

16.Gun

17.The Lonely One

18.How To Fight Loneliness

19.We’re Just Friends

20.Summerteeth

 

P.S. Hummingbird and Reservations are huge oversights in the VC list!!

 

If I had to choose favorite songs not based solely on songwriting ability, Poor Places, Muzzle of Bees and Hell is Chrome would sit atop my list.

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