Let's Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc.

by Jeff Tweedy

nobody knew the Raccoonists had ever been a real band. Which just made it more “Late Great”–ish, even though that song (I can’t emphasize this enough) isn’t at all about the Raccoonists.

As it turns out, London Calling is a pretty conventional rock album for the most part, and I hated it the first few times I listened to it. I felt obligated to honor my investment, though, and kept listening

The Who were larger-than-life rock deities demonstrating a power that was monolithic, distant, and authoritative. Henry Rollins was just a guy yelling onstage a few feet away. You could run over and give him a head butt (if you were into that kind of thing). He’d kill you, but nobody would stop you. He was just a super-jacked guy who declined to wear a shirt. Springsteen, on the other hand, was going to save us all whether we wanted to be saved or not.

knew. I always contend that that’s why he’s been unable to get the help he needs to stop drinking—because he’s convinced that he’s smarter than everyone. And you need to be able to accept that you’re not.

Seriously, if you were smart enough to fix yourself, wouldn’t you have done it by now?

And I would guess there’s a lot more similarity in how we suffer than the way we experience joy. Rejection stays with you, but I don’t think people register it when they’re happy. They don’t say, “I need to remember what this feels like.” It just goes by, and it’s perfect and awesome, and you feel grateful that you get to experience even a fleeting moment of pure, unbridled, unsarcastic bliss. But when we experience pain or trauma, we’re acutely aware that something is wrong. You want answers. “What is this? How do I get rid of this? Why is this happening to me? I don’t want this.” That’s why so much art, and music, in particular, becomes a great commiserating balm for pain. Joy doesn’t need to be audited. We’re just grateful to have had it at all. But pain, goddammit, we demand to know Who’s responsible for this?

That story always made sense to me. I’ve had that same moment of feeling like everything’s changed because of one compliment, one tiny bit of encouragement. That, in a nutshell, is what Peter Buck did for me. Not that he ever walked into the studio just to tell me how great I was. No, but he made me feel like an equal.

His telling added details that were villainous, like that I’d been stroking Monica’s hair (doesn’t sound like me), and when he confronted me, I called him a pussy (really not in my repertoire, being one myself). He