Ticket 2 Ride

Jeff Tweedy is admired and respected as a songwriter and leader of Wilco. Of late, he’s developed into a fine author. World Within a Song (2023, Dutton) is full of fun, sad and revealing stories of Tweedy’s life. This is not his memoirs, but it sure does give you a clear view of his DNA. He picks 50 songs that are special to him for some reason.

Music and life are linked and inseparable. Each affects the other, that’s the core of Tweedy’s latest book. We can all remember events or even feelings we had when a particular song or piece of music plays. Music triggers memories, whether we realize it or not. Music sets a mood for us too. Moods influence actions and behavior as well. Music is a powerful drug, that’s my diagnosis, not Tweedy, but he might agree.

“It’s as perfect a memory as I have of my mother, and it’s a perfect song,” Tweedy writes, remembering his mother as they watched a Judy Garland movie together. A magical moment.

Tweedy writes about two Randy Newman songs on his 1977 album, Little Criminals. Newman, we know, often writes satirical and thought-provoking songs. On this album was “Short People” and “In Germany Before the War,” two very different, yet commentaries on prejudice. “Randy Newman tells us what to look at by showing us what isn’t there,” Tweedy writes. “I’m still striving to learn how to conjure up that type of magic. I want to make things that make people feel and know things without any thinking on their part. It’s kind of the whole point.”

Jeff Tweedy is 56 years old. I mentioned that because in your 50s, one starts to look back and examine their journey, particularly a songwriter. Tweedy’s youth was like mine and millions of others who struggled to make sense of who they were and not always fitting into their lives. World Within a Song visits some of the points along Tweedy’s backstory, usually connected to music, timestamps that stand out with an “ah ha,” triggered by a song or event.

“And then there are a handful of records that feel like I’m the only one in the world who cares about them. Records that make you feel the urge to evangelize. But some records really get overlooked, and it’s strange when you realize a record that’s become a constant companion reliably draws blank stares when brought up.”

The book is filled with admissions like: “My dreams often play this song in the background. At a time in my life when everything felt like forever but not much resembled paradise, this song was a comfort. And falling asleep to it was as perfectly content as I ever got in those days.”

“There are wrong opinions about music! And to this day, ‘Dancing Queen’ is the song I always think of when I THINK I don’t like something,” Tweedy writes. “It taught me that I can’t ever completely trust my negative reactions. I was burned so badly by this one song being withheld from my heart for so long.”

“I imagine it’s because I spent so much time factually alone in my bedroom being comforted by my record collection. So I always picture any type of person you can imagine— headbanger, goth kid, accountant—alone in a room, confronting a faded connection with the world, being told by our song exactly what I most wanted every song to tell me. You. Are. Not. Alone.” Wow, can I relate to that!

World Within a Song is the book that we most of us could write: Snapshots that define or represent us. Not a greatest hits collection, just moments that somehow made a journal entry in our story. Some of these mile markers are hits, some are misses, others are unexplained, and many are just memories that tucked themselves in our journey for no other reason than they are a part of us, and push into our consciousness with “Remember me?!”

My final comments:

Does music change people, or is it just the cultural transport mechanism? Commentary, fashion, style and attitude, music is more than notes and beats. Influencing an isolated teen in their bedroom or an ocean of hungry souls, music has tremendous power.

Game changers by generation: Sinatra as a teen idol in the 1940s, Elvis in the 1950s, the Beatles in the 1960s, Prince in the 1980s, Nirvana in the 1990s, Eminem in the 2000s, Beyoncé in the 2010s, Taylor Swift today. There certainly are others: Black Sabbath, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Tupac, Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, and those whose music speaks to, and forges an influential relationship, with eager fans.

Tweedy uses his own life as the prism for examining music’s special powers. I found a lot to identify with, and to ponder. Anyone who loves music will enjoy this book.

4.7/5

*Watch for my upcoming review of Wilco’s Cousin (2023).