a letter to Jeff Tweedy

I think this will be a part of a series of letters I write to people I am intrigued with and have something to say to even though I

 have no idea if the letter will even reach them. this one has a doozy in it that I have only eluded to in the past.  

Dear Jeff Tweedy, 
It's pretty weird to be writing you a letter. Going over it last night as I was attempting to sleep did not account for thinking about you actually reading it. I have had this project in mind that involved sending postcards to "people of note" but hadn't tried to look up any addresses on the internet until last night. After reading about the new box set of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I decided to look up your address on google and much to my surprise, a fairly reasonable address popped up for you. I haven't written a letter that wasn't electronically transmitted since the technology first came to be. 

This could DEFINITELY be considered a fan letter. I don't know how many of those you get but this is the first one I have written. Somewhere I have a signed  photograph of Susan from Sesame Street thanking me for the letter I wrote to her but I am sure my mom had something to do with that. Why Susan? I have no idea. I need to follow up on that with my mom. Why Jeff Tweedy? That question I can attempt to answer.  Like I said, I am a fan but I also consider myself a discerning fan. You did an amazing job with your memoir, and it was a wonderful treat to have you read it to me via Audible. Listening to you narrate your life as I meandered through mine was interesting and insightful . You have surreptitiously been a part of my life for some of the most fundamental parts of it thus far. I know you are not WILCO but I think we can both agree that you are a pretty big piece of that pie. We can argue about that later. I will now attempt to "get on with it". 

WILCO has put forth into the world some of the most important music of my life. I don't say or take this lightly as I am nothing without music. I need it. I use music like drugs and I have been known to really like drugs. It's more than drugs, it's feeling something so much that it hurts.

 
Luckily sound isn't necessarily dangerous but it certainly can be. I was a licensed mortician for about 10 years. 15 or so years of my life was dedicated to death care and all that surrounds it. Music as a ritual used in ceremonies is a powerful wand. Creating windows for those facing transitions that death so eloquently exposes. Absolutely BLASTING "1983...  (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)" at 3 o'clock in the morning with no sleep since the last 3 o'clock in the morning will fundamentally fuck you forever.  If you are listening anyway. 

I picked up 

A.M. 

(red vinyl, clear plastic sleeve, bed-room in an attic that

was definitely a code violation, Costco turntable/receiver/dual tape deck unit) a day or two after it had come out from my local record store. I knew you were a part of Uncle Tupelo, and I really liked Uncle Tupelo but I had some "musician" friends that REALLY liked Uncle Tupelo. One can only handle so many Olympia beer fueled campfire guitar renditions of "Moonshiner" before one questions the tastes of his peer group. They were also VERY into Soul Asylum at the time so do what you want with that. Forgoing the fan-boy pontifications involving the inaugural WILCO record, we will suffice to say that I'd quickly figured out what I liked about Uncle Tupelo. I need to note that I have been in arguments about Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy. I gave that up a few years ago realizing I didn't fucking care anymore and that Nels Cline could be the greatest guitar player in the world. 

When my friend Andy Capps, who happened to be the drummer on Built To Spill's 2nd record as well as one of the finest humans I have ever had the pleasure of knowing died of a methadone overdose, the soundtrack to my grief was 

A Ghost is Born. 

Wracking sobs, gnashing of teeth, tearing of cloth sadness. I don't think that record is particularly sad but it's not without melancholy or dissonance. 

When I was breaking my first marriage up into pieces of anger and guilt and freedom and beauty there was already another woman crashing into all of it. I am PRETTY SURE you and yours wrote "Either Way” specifically, just for me to hear. That last sentence sounds a little schizophrenic but that might be the only song I have every played over and over and over so I could just fucking cry and cry and cry. Well done, I needed that. I am listening to it right now and it worked again. 

Sky Blue Sky  

brings us Nels Cline right? I saw him play as a Minuteman with Mike Watt at 7th St. Entry in 1997. We hung out a bit backstage as my friends’ band Caustic Resin were touring with them. Brett was freshly out of rehab and fragile as fuck. Nels destroyed me in that room. When he joined WILCO I wondered if I was somehow psychically manifesting my personal supergroup.

 

Wilco (the Album) 

just plugs me in and blasts me off into memory. At this point in life I am losing it a bit (later on I will come to know I hadn't seen nothin' yet). "One Wing" "You and I" and "I'll Fight" are suffice to say, painfully beautiful soundtracks written just for my life. 

No one else has to “get” this trip of mine. I have failed to meet anyone who understands WILCO the way I do. That might be an indication of how distinct each record has been. My opinion is that WILCO records need to be seen as a suite of sorts. A flowing unfinished tapestry. I am still trying to figure out Ode To Joy. To me, that record is proving to be the most elusive. What might be so special or even magical about music is how much the individual listening to it interprets and transforms it. A song doesn't have a choice. It's placed in time and space and lives and breathes based on the will and spirit of the listener. How long does the song belong to the creator? Does it ever? 

Of course reading (listening to) your book changed the way I hear you and yours.  Now I wonder if it would have had as much of an impact if I had actually read it to myself...I wonder if I would even be writing this if I hadn't heard your voice tell me parts of your story and explain WILCO to me from your perspective. I better sum this up. I have rambled on and on, now it's time for me to go..

You and I had very different upbringings and I could go on about that but it doesn't really matter either way. We both "raised?'' ( I believe our children teach us way more than we will ever teach them)  two boys (mine are 21 and 19 and amazing and I am lucky). We both love music beyond most people care to think about it, I think...I am just taking that from your book. You and I both enjoy a slightly more "wry" if not deceptive sort of humor, again conjecture. Also both of us were addicted to opiates for longer than we wanted to be. I stole mine from the county coroner's office I worked for. My duties included performing autopsies under the supervision of a forensic pathologist. I was in charge and oversaw toxicological testing, photography and evidence collection (which also included destroying DRUG evidence). I was lucky and when I was fired after a dirty drug test I didn't have the courage nor means to score from the other obvious avenues. No one ever even knew I was a junkie. After I was fired I just happened to have the flu for a month. Did that in cold terror, shaking away to nothing in the basement. My entire world was never the wiser until it was recently old enough to handle it.  I guess I wanted to let you know that about me. Not many people know that about me. I have an idea about how THAT feels.

I don't know why I am writing this now. At this point I have revised it a few times and honestly it's a bit embarrassing.  Luckily for me, embarrassment is not a crippling issue. If someone sent me a note of this nature, I would be at least intrigued and probably fairly amused. It would be great if you got back out to play in Boise again. I thought for a minute I would attempt one of those Iceland shows but time and money were not in the way. I spent a few days in Iceland a thousand years ago and have been trying to get back there since. Hopefully you do read this letter. I'm hoping that it isn’t a nusance and possibly elicits a smile.

Yours sincerely, 

Barton Loyd Kline

barton.kline@gmail.com

https://alwaysweargloves.blogspot.com/