Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
I was just finishing up my 2nd trimester of my junior year at Jerome High School.  I was 17, I listened to a lot of 90s grunge, and you guessed it, my life sucked and I hated the world.  I was doing "The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged," as Hamlet.  It was a great show, and I was getting great grades in all my classes, but of course, this wasn't good enough.  I had to be unhappy.  Whether sad or angry, it was part of my daily agenda.  For Christmas, I got Wilco's Sky Blue Sky and I loved it.  It's like a classic rock album, something people could smoke to.  Having researched the band, I learned that critics all agreed on their 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.  Having loved Sky Blue Sky so much, I couldn't imagine what Foxtrot would sound like.  So, without even knowing any songs from it, I decided to buy it.
I saw it had come in the mail when I got home from a "Shakespeare" performance.  Instead of actually listening to it, I studied the album cover.  Are those the World Trade Center towers or 2 piles of pennies? (Answer: The Marina City towers in Chicago).  I popped it in on a Saturday morning and I knew right away it was good.  At the time, I compared it to my then favorite artist, Beck.  Nothing on it hit me like a train, per say, at least not yet.  I learned the album sounded different when you played it late at night.
The album opener "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" was the perfect beginning to a restless night.  I couldn't name all the instruments in there if I tried (answer: synthesizers).  Tweedy's scratchy voice singing that simple, catchy, joyful melody always picked me up, even if the lyrics were somewhere between depressing and non-understandable.  "Kamera" picked up some pace and pretty much gave me my motto for being 17, "No, its not OK."  "Radio Cure" would creep up on me.  Tweedy's voice cracks as he says "Cheer up. Honey, I hope you can."  "War on War" had a familiar sound to me, and continued the feel of the album, me imagining myself staring blankly at a fast-paced world ("Just watch the miles going by...").  "Jesus Etc" was probably my favorite track.  The steel guitars reminded me of Led Zeppelin III and the string quartet was enough to make me cry (ironically, the first line is "Jesus, don't cry").  The title itself is freaking classic.  "Ashes of American Flags" is not about America.  At that age, I never understood the ambient, kraut rock influence that made this song possible, but I knew it was slow and pretty.  Next song, "Heavy Metal Drummer," things get a lot happier.  Talking about going to rock concerts in the summer reminded me that February was almost over and spring was coming.  "I'm the Man Who Loves You" is a statement I may never say, but man, its a great song!  The electric guitar and horns reminded me of the Beatles, with a swinging acoustic guitar line and a marching beat that makes a guy wanna say simply: "I'm the Man Who Loves You!"  "Pot Kettle Black" is possibly the most under-rated track on the album.  To me, it was like the perfect alternative rock song dedicated to Led Zeppelin III.  It still makes me smile ("I'm not/ gonna get caught/ calling a pot/ kettle black!")  That blends into "Poor Places."  I still remember hearing this on the way to Watsonville, CA with the sun glistening through the trees.  It was then I recognized all the scary static that builds at the end of the song.  The final track is "Reservations."  After 4 positive, confident songs, Tweedy leaves us with a heartbreaker.  "How can I convince you it's me I don't like?"  The piano on this one is easy to play, but hard to write.  The album ends with 4 minutes of ambient sounds.  51 minutes, 51 seconds.
Me being the downer I was, this album was perfect.  Each individual track is packed with one-liners that I will never be able to compose.  I'd like to make an album like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot someday, moreso out of admiration than competition.  I still have this mindset that there's a thick difference between modern indie synth sounds and classic stoner-rock bands, but Foxtrot just breaks that barrier into pieces.  I guess you can say, as depressing as some of these songs are, this record brought some much needed joy into my life.  I felt like I found my future wife on a 6 year old CD.  There was a song tied to every emotion I had ever felt, and for some reason, this wasn't cheesy to me.  Late at night, 17 years old, doing homework and thinking of how play practice went, this was my soundtrack.  "You have to learn how die/ if you wanna wanna be alive!"
Thanks Wilco.