Wilco found themselves in a peculiar position around the turn of the 21st century. They had spent months in their Chicago loft writing songs only to break them apart and rearrange them until they were no longer recognizable. The end result of their labor was an album ("Yankee Hotel Foxtrot") that sounded like an intimately familiar country/rock/folk record that also happened to be totally obscured by digitized blips and beeps, which lend the album an alienating feeling.
Unfortunately, Wilco's record label (Reprise) were alienated by the music and quickly dropped them into a purgatorial state. The band may have had a fully complete album that was totally paid for, but they idled for almost a year with no form of distribution until they fired a contentious bandmate (Jay Bennett) and signed with Nonesuch Records. The sweet irony here is that Reprise and Nonesuch are both subsidiaries of Warner Brothers who essentially paid for the same album twice.
I mention this musical history lesson because it reminds me of the current state of America. Like Wilco in 2001, America is in a precarious position right now. Every election year contains a pervasive sense of uncertainty and miscommunication that is almost palpable sometimes. "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" strikes me as the perfect record for this season of our history because it reflects the uncomfortable interim before something concrete is decided. Listening to it feels like walking through an American city during an election year and asking yourself questions that you know you can't answer yet, but you just have to try.
This is because the music itself sounds like it's trying so hard to be honest and open and can't quite communicate properly so right when you get a grasp on a song you lose it. Just reading off song titles like "War On War," "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" and "I'm The Man Who Loves You" feels like having a conversation with someone, like a politician, who is obviously trying to lie to you for a reason that doesn't make sense. Why would you actively be trying to break someone's heart if you claim to love them? Isn't a war on war just a self-perpetuating cycle of oxymoronic goodwill similar to our two party political system?
The album poses many questions like this without ever seeking to answer them. This is most evident in the song "Ashes Of American Flags," which is an achingly somber ballad about how our mundane lives often mask intense emotions that gestate within our minds and hearts for years with no proper outlet. However, an election year is the perfect and most socially acceptable time to vent all of the pent up frustrations we may feel about our country and ourselves.
In the song, lyricist Jeff Tweedy frames this type of American identity crisis as an argument with a lover as well as himself. He honestly muses, "All my lies are always wishes. I know I would die if I could come back new." With this one line Tweedy offers an explanation as to why we willfully choose to fragment ourselves away from those around us.
In the era we live now we have more ways to misinterpret messages than we ever have (television, internet, film). We may begin with the best of intentions, but if we can't affectively communicate those intentions to another person than they will be perceived as lies. Our lies, in this context, are now our deeply miscommunicated wishes to be understood and loved.
Another major theme of "Ashes Of American Flags" is rebirth. The latter half of that lyric ("I know I would die if I could come back new") establishes a longing for someone to change in a relationship just as we long for our country to change after a presidential election. Tweedy ends the song with the lines, "I would like to salute the ashes of American flags. And all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags."
These lines always get to me because the symbol of an American flag reduced to ashes mirrors the loss of identity that some of us feel when our candidate doesn't win the election. Fortunately, there is a hopeful, yet melancholy, note in the image of Autumn leaves aimlessly floating around in parking lots. Just the fact that they're fallen leaves suggests that a new season is beginning and change, as it always has and always will, is inevitably moving towards us.
What albums have you been listening to over this election year?
