So here's the thing with homemade meals. Eating them is great. But all the chopping and measuring and clean up not so much. With new, one-pan assemble and bake meals from Blue Apron, you get all the flavor of homemade meals with a fraction of the work. Just assemble the pre-chopped ingredients, bake in the oven, and enjoy.
Shop assemble and bake at blueapron.com. Get 50% off your first two orders with code APRAN50. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com slash terms for more. This is Jane Pauley.
Jeff Tweedy may be best known for leading the band Wilco. This weekend the legendary singer, songwriter, author, and record producer sits down with Sunday morning's Anthony Mason. In the last five or six years or ten years maybe. Music has become Maybe as important to me as it ever has been, maybe as important as when I was a kid, and it was really a consolation to spend time with my records and feel comforted by them in a lonely kind of way. It just seems like in times where you're really struggling.
It's It's the best coping strategy I think I've ever come across, and I think most people feel the same way regarding music. In particular, a certain type of music making. Uh feels very Um grounding and centering and and you know Almost as if the world makes sense. And that is singing harmony vocals with your family. you know I'm not a I'm I'm not into being overtly political.
And I but I think that there is Inherently, the nature of people singing together, the defiance of it is. Feels Uh Transcendent of politics, and in a way, that's as political as you can get. It's just a human scale thing. There's the A couple of things have been happening in the past year. I'm sorry, I'm rambling.
I'm like, sounding like I'm losing my mind, but it's a, you know. The AI on the horizon. Um the kind of oppressive nature even if I would think that even people that agree with the current political regime are Would feel oppressed to some degree by its omnipresence in their lives. You know, it's just not something. I think most people of a certain age grew up having to think about every day.
And I don't think it's particularly good for us.
So let me ask you, when so in the middle of all this confusion, Mm-hmm. What does music do for you?
Well, that's like the... It's the only place, A, I feel like I have, I'm powerful in any kind of way. If I'm thinking about, The prospect of certain freedoms being rolled back in our culture or in our government, how we treat each other. Um What what what do I use freedom for? What type of freedom am I talking about?
And the prim the one that's most important to me is freedom of thought, freedom to of expression, to be have individual self-expression and an imagination. That's where I'm freest is in my mind.
So All of this is to say that I think starting making a record with your friends, making a record with your family, is a modeled behavior and a coping strategy. To me, it's a modeled behavior of a way that I don't think is inaccessible to most people. They don't really have access maybe to making a record with their friends, but you could. Create with your friends. You can spend time with your friends in a way that is fulfilling to everyone.
Uh That's all I really want to give. I don't think it's a big profound statement, honestly. I think it's just. I just think it's the right thing to do. And the statement you put out with the Alban, you said, what I really want to do is grow my heart big enough to love everyone.
Yeah, I could have the three records could have really been But boiled down to the one lyric on the record that is it's hard to stay in love with everyone. And it could have been done. Could have just put out a not even a whole single, just a a voice memo or something. But yeah. It it feels unnatural and wrong to me.
To Uh walk around with so much animosity towards people I don't know. I don't, you know. we all have this sort of idea that we know The other side, or knows that there are other sides. Um That's Um a foolish a foolish thing to believe. I know that's the it is a big I think is the problem both sides are having is leaping to understand that nobody There's there are no bridges left, it seems like.
No, it's like um there's no room to grow. Uh there's no room to grow together. There's a like uh it's everybody's got their fists clenched, and if you like show any kind of weakness in that regard, it's it's uh suspect, then you're complicit or you're like you're the wrong person. Does music or does writing in some way make you feel more open to loving everybody? Uh no, not at all.
No, no. Um It is love. I think it is love. Like whether or not. Um I am Capable of loving everybody.
I think sharing music with the world and opening yourself up to making a connection with somebody that you don't know, which is what it requires for it to be successful in any way. By definition, the people that are putting it together in their consciousness are all people I don't know, and I don't. Expect that all of them have the exact same political beliefs or the exact same perspective that I do. That is an act of love. It's an act of trust.
It's an act of faith. of some sort. Uh And uh That's the only thing I don't think I think I know how to do. You said something that I really love, which is you said creativity eats darkness. It's well, I mean, it's hard to be.
Scared? And when you're Singing a song. Yeah. You know? It's hard to be For writing, for me, spending time in the process of creating, I lose myself.
So, therefore, I'm not situated in the world that is bothering me as a conscious human walking around and paying attention. Yeah, that darkness tends to Uh dissipate. And talking about writing, you said I I go to work every day like my dad did. Which is interesting 'cause I don't think a lot of people think of writing as the same when your dad worked on the railroad. Um It's very different, but you look at it the same way.
Well, I don't see why you can't look at it the same way. I mean, it obviously it's different. It's an endeavor that I hopefully get a lot more gratification from than my dad did going to work every day. that wasn't ungratifying to my dad. You know, he wasn't as invested in it personally, but he took pride in it.
You know, he was like um he got something out of it and and uh he was built his identity around it. And um that's all I've done. You know, I've built my identity around this this thing I do. Um But I mean, for for you, becoming a musician was pretty radical in your upbringing, wasn't it? Um It wasn't It wasn't a clear Career path that other people could see, you know?
Did you see it in the beginning?
Okay. No, I mean, here's the deal. When I what I Aspired to be what my dream was. I achieved that about 30-something years ago. You know, that's because it seemed so attainable in the music that I liked.
I liked punk rock, I liked the small bands and the small shows I was going to see. And that did not look like something that You had to be a genius to figure out how to do. Or that you needed hardly anything other than a van and an amplifier, you know, like there's a hand, you know, some equipment. But most people, if you were Persistent enough, you could get in a van and go do a gig. And once we could do that and had a The records were part of it too.
I wanted to make records because I loved records, I loved music. Listening to records. To get to make a record and then have a gig to go to. Once that happened All of this has been Gravy. Pretty much.
Yeah. I think so. I honestly think so. And I think that's been, you know. I don't think I think uh one of the weird things I think is uh about it.
Like a dream, having a dream. If it's not like a super exalted, like crazy dream, I don't see that there's some reason that you. even when you achieve it, it's not something that you have to let go of. It can still be your dream. To me, the dream since then has been how can I keep doing this?
You know? And what what What do I do? What are the steps to keeping This happening. It's um I think I read somewhere you said, I mean, what did y what did your dad think about you doing this? Yeah.
Uh Mike. Uh My dad wasn't that invested in dissecting what was going to happen. I think my dad. I think that in my family, and not just on my extended family, uncles and cousins. The idea was if this didn't work out, I guess I'd work on the railroad.
You know, I think that like railroad families, that's pretty much, I think maybe without even saying it, that was the unspoken career path for Most of us. Did you think that might happen to you?
Well, it happened to my brothers. I watched them go to work and I thought about it. But I don't think my mom wanted that to happen, so she was pretty supportive of the music thing for a long time. I don't. think she wanted it to be m my career.
I think she was hoping that it would be a fallback thing. You know, we we actually made a fair amount of money as a as a like a cover band playing sixties garage music. And when we decided that we weren't going to do that anymore and we were going to write our own songs, my mother was like. Incredulous. Like, how is this?
Why would you stop doing this? Why can't you do both? Why can't you write your own songs and play them and then completely? What was she worried about, do you think?
Well, we had a good thing. You don't like leave money on the table when you get 1,500 kids coming from all around the county to come see your band. I don't know. That was it was going well. You were drawing fifteen hundred kids, really?
That's r that's a great crowd. This is a a town with one cop and and uh you could sell quarter beers and To underage kids. And my mom would work the door and buy the barrels. And I mean, it was like it's a pretty good racket. What kind of money were you making?
Yeah. Enough to buy a lot of guitars, to be honest. I mean, everybody liked guitars in the day when they were not when they were cheap, but. But no, I don't think that it wasn't something that she saw long term, but she was supportive of it. My dad was to a certain degree.
After Uh maybe after I want a Grammy. Yeah. I think it f that's when the Finally, the penny dropped. I think that this might be something legitimate with my family. I I think it was something like that, or like we were in People Magazine and it started to seem like a little bit like it could be s re serious.
Yeah, you were respectable. And then, you know, my dad became much uh Uh My dad was, I think, my mom and dad were both very, very smart for not having finished high school. Neither one of them finished high school. They were both very. Thoughtful and philosophical over the course of my life.
I think I got that from them in spite of it not being in an academic. Environment, you know.
So, my dad became really introspective, thought about a lot of things, and at some point he said, you know. I used to get mad at you for not studying and you'd be upstairs listening to your records and I knew you weren't studying but you were listening to your records and then it's like, now I know you were studying. And then he also the other thing he said that made me teary a little bit, it was like, you know, when you're when you're younger you learn from your your parents and when you're older you learn from your kids. And and that's not like I don't know. Super profound, but it's nice to hear, you know.
It means a lot to hear that from your dad. Yeah. So he came around on a lot of things b before he passed away. Y you um you said in in something I read, You said that the first song you fell in love with. Was turn, turn, turn?
Yeah. Yeah. What did you fall in love with? I mean like we could put it on right now and I mean like How can you not fall in love with it? It's really, it's really magical.
It doesn't sound like any other record still, I think. Uh Just the physical sound of it, you know, is kind of breathtaking. Lyrically, it has a spiritual element, and it has, you know, it contains a philosophy in a two and a half minute pop song, you know. Um There's a r you know. It's just perfect.
As perfect as something out of tune and underpowered can be, you know? Um does songs teach you about yourself? Absolutely. I mean, that's the whole point. You don't set I mean, I think some artists maybe sit down and go, I want to write a song about this.
And maybe I have on occasion thought like that there's something I want to uh address. The songs I have like that are more about things that I want to remember, like things I feel like I've learned, but I know I'll forget unless I have a song to sing that will remind me. But most of the time, You write to find out what you want to say. You write to find out what it is that you didn't know was in you. It's an act of discovery.
That's That's one of the joys of it, is the supp is when you can get to something. But you surprise yourself with. Are you surprised in any way that it still matters as much? That you've still I mean, you still look forward to going on the road? I do.
Yeah. Yeah. It's been a sacrifice. I'm not saying that it's always been easy. It's been a sacrifice for my family.
It's been a sacrifice for me physically, for sure, over a long period of time. But I still look at it on a nightly basis and go, I can't believe I get to do this. I really don't understand how that happened. I don't understand how I learned how to play the guitar or when or if I really did. It's all a dream.
It's all a dream. I mean, I've I've I've definitely Nurtured in myself, like I said, like this feeling, I want to feel like I deserve it. And part of wanting to feel like I deserve it means maintaining some sense of gratitude, maintaining some sense that it is a privilege, that you are extremely fortunate to be among a rare. tiny percentage of people that have ever lived That have found something they love to do and then get to do it and make a make, you know. Uh be able to financially take care of their family doing it.
You know? Um that's That's not something you should look at as a take you take for granted. It's true. We'll have more from our Sunday morning extended interview after this break.
Well, the holidays have come and gone once again. But if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless.
So here's the idea: you get it now. You call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a try at mintmobile.com/slash switch. Limited time, 50% off regular price for new customers, upfront payment required: $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for a 12-month plan.
Taxes and fees extra. Speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See terms. It's interesting. Creativity to you does not at any time seem to be a burden.
Um No, I mean again, that in and of itself, being able to set aside that amount of time in a day to be with myself and have some solitude and think something up. Um the only way that would be uh fraught Yeah. demanded that it made, it was a work of genius. It was a work of, you know, it was his masterpiece or something like that.
Well, I just, I mean, I think what I'm getting at, I mean, because I talk to a lot of songwriters who've said, you know, they write a song, it's great, and they think, oh, I'm never going to write a great song again. You know, and it's that, you know, and then they're staring at a blank piece of paper and they're just, you know, they torture themselves. And it's true not just of songwriters, it's true of musicians, I mean, it's true of painters, it's true of all sorts of people. Write a song every day and it'd be hard to write a bad song every day. Every day.
Well I mean You write 365 songs. I think if you tried to write 365 bad songs, it would be pretty, it would be impossible. You would eventually, you know, in spite of yourself. Write something that was catchy or was pretty good, you know, or even great. Yeah, is because it it's interesting.
I mean, I was talking about. You know, Billy Joel just stopped writing entirely. And I asked him, I was like, why? And he goes, because I just decided I couldn't write anything as good as what I'd already written. Dylan said something kind of similar.
He said, I can't do that, I can do other things. Which I think is what I think is, I mean, I understand that. I think it's also provocative. to ask him a question like that. Because A person that has been around as long as is myself even.
One of the things that People weigh you against more than that hurts more than anything else is against yourself. You know, it's not like being weighed against some other artist is understandable. Being expected to live up to something. That has had a chance to be a part of someone's life for 20 years already. You can't compete with that.
You can't compete with what. Other people have built up around your music. You try and write like that, you can't. You have a song. I think the first line is.
Um that you were born at 17. I waited until 17 to get born. Um What did that mean?
Well, there's a whole lot of births and deaths on the record. And there's a whole lot of me's, I think, that I've tried to envision different paths for myself on this record. Yeah, not in a n uh, multi whatever, multi multiverse sense, but but in a very like sort of Um You know, it's so easily, when you look back on your life, there so easily could not be sitting here for sure. Uh But I do think that Uh For me, it feels like certain periods in my life, I was waiting to try and figure out where the key was to unlock. the person that I wanted to be.
I wanted to be comfortable on stage. I'm not. Still, for the most part. I think that I I'm confident. on stage.
But comfortable, not through a whole show, for sure. That's interesting. How can you be confident but not comfortable? I'm confident in my ability to do Because I have experience of doing it over and over and over again. Am I comfortable when I?
Inevitably am aware of the fact that someone's looking at me. And evolutionarily speaking, I'm still tuned into where the danger is, as if I'm on the savannah and I'm looking for a lion. And so if I can scan an audience, I can see one thousand people having a great time, and I will pick out the guy that's gone Yeah. I'll see him right away. You know, an eye roll was like, you know, like 14th row.
I like, you know, no, I think I've talked to a lot of other performers. Yeah. You tend to spend a lot of your energy, in spite of yourself, like fixating on the people that you're like, oh, I'm going to have to work a little harder on this guy. Do you take that personally? Not as much as I used to.
No, no. I think, no, I'm. I mean, the problem is them now, for sure. Yeah. I mean, if it's only 1% that you're not winning over, I'd say you're doing pretty well.
You know what fixed me? What? Is going to see some shows. At some point I was sitting there going, God. If this audience was all me, it would be the worst show of this performer's life.
Because I was just like, I'm having a great time. I'm loving it, but I'm not like, I'm not, I'm withholding of like the, you know. exuberance that is that you kind of live for when you're on stage. It's like, you know, like you need those people that Most of them aren't aren't like me at all, and I'm really grateful for that. You've got a song on this album with Stray Cats in the title.
Which and they were the first band you saw. The Stray Cats were the first band I saw, which is kind of funny too, because it's sort of a, you know, a. Fifties music in the eighties. And so that's the ground zero and then about 30 years later, or 30 plus years later, we were on a bill in Spain, and they were playing on our day off.
So I get to walk over from our hotel and watch the Stray Cats, and they were. Doing, I think, the same, mostly the same songs, and walking with this crowd to go see the Stray Cats. Um Spanish people coming out of the woodwork wearing 50s rockabilly clothes. And um All dressed up. It's like uh Like it wasn't just dress up for that day.
It was just like this wow, there are this many people still into this thing and have found themselves in this identity in this thing. I thought that was like, you know. But everybody should have something, you know, like that, and it was like a really beautiful thing to get to witness. You have a fan base that has that kind of loyalty too. Um Yeah, I think that if um I think if you Certain bands uh that tour a lot, certain bands that leave that room for the listener, leave room for the fans.
often tend to, like our band, Uh Foster an environment where people make their own connections. And then something bigger than you grows up around your band. And that has happened to Wilco. And at this point, I am just. honored and thrilled to get to be a part of that.
Uh Because I think it's good, I just think it's a good thing. And um But I I don't see Yeah. I know we're at the center of it. to some degree, but I don't see us as being the most important element of it for a lot of people at this point. I think that the camaraderie, the connection that they have, the very real day-to-day interactions and friendships that have grown out of it.
We can't compete with that. I mean, I think all we can do is not let them down and just cry and keep showing up. But even if we went away, there'd be like expos and reunions and stuff, I think. Does that feel like a responsibility? It feels like having a congregation of some sort.
But not in a burdensome kind of way. I think in a good way. I think that. I mean, it's just like, you know, your family, like you. But you feel like you're not.
Doesn't your family make you feel like you want to you want to be good in a way that you feel like you deserve them? To me, it's like that kind of connection. I I love working with people like that too, that make me feel like I sh I should work hard because I want to feel like I deserve this loyalty and this friendship, you know. That's an interesting way to look at it. I mean, it is, it does, you've you've basically created a community.
Okay. Yeah, um which is I mean That's so hard in this day and age. It's like, um, A certain type of people from a certain time period in this country are not really good at creating community. I don't think. Outside of sports, outside of church, there isn't a lot of room for it in a lot of A lot of parts of our culture.
So, yeah, like if you manage to stumble into creating some community, I think it is should be a responsibility. I'm Jane Pauley. Thank you for listening. And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday Morning on the free Odyssey app. or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm back. I'm really back. School spirits returned. Why am I here? Lot dead.
Right. Disruptions on this campus will not be tolerated. If I look crazy, it's because that's how I feel. I don't know how to live in two worlds. Secrets lurk.
There are others beneath the surface. They're not like us. We need to get out of here.
Now. School Spirit's new season now streaming only on Paramount Plus. Pluto TV has thousands of free movies and TV shows. If I'm lying, I'm dying. This is the mindset.
Free. This is the mantra. Free. This is the. With movies like Interstellar, Dream Girls, and Gladiator.
Why are you not entertained? And TV shows like Survivor, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly Odd Parents, and Ghosts, Pluto TV is always free. Huzzah! Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.
