World within a song Music that changed my life and life that changed my music

Review by Booklist Review

Following the generosity of the best-selling How to Write One Song (2020), Tweedy extends his largesse and candor in this delightfully inspiring blend of memoir and guidance. Early on he writes, "Life's too short to let your critical thinking get in the way of being moved by music." Tweedy was snapped to attention at the tender age of six, he confides, by Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water." Throughout the revelry that ensues, Tweedy's enthusiasm is contagious; readers will want to search the internet to hear for themselves the music he describes and loves. "Because I'm still here. And I can. And they can't tell you. They didn't get a chance. I love them." Tweedy is referring to teenagers who died in a car accident on their prom night in Portland, Maine. He didn't know them, but across time, geography, and chance, an affinity grew. Throughout 50 spirited chapters, Tweedy expresses his heartfelt love of music and of life and how he and music have fused beyond matters of craft. Life itself is music; all one needs to do is listen.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Wilco front man Tweedy has pull and given the success of his previous books this will be on many a must-read list.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Tweedy (Let's Go (So We Can Get Back)), cofounder of the rock band Wilco and alt-country group Uncle Tupelo, delivers a spirited memoir centered on his relationships to such songs as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," and Judy Collins's cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now." In short sections organized by song, Tweedy holds forth on the ways these tunes­--which he often loves, sometimes hates, and occasionally feels indifference toward--have shaped his life and relationships, delving into his own creative process along the way ("When you hear the occasional whistled refrain in my own songs," he writes, "it's only there because Otis let me sit down on the dock beside him" in "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay"). "Shotgun" by Junior Walker and the All-Stars stirs up memories of marrying his wife, Susie (a tongue-in-cheek selection, as she was pregnant at the time); "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five convinced him, at 15, that hip-hop was "a vitally important new form of musical expression" rather than "some pop music anomaly." Tweedy's snappy prose ("I reflexively reject everything Bon Jovi does") and dry wit elevate the proceedings. This entertaining and enlightening survey hits the right note. Agent: Josh Grier, Ember Lab. (Nov.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

New York Times best-selling author and Wilco front man Tweedy (How To Write One Song) is back with another fun, self-narrated audiobook about the power of music. Tweedy explains how music has impacted every aspect of his life, from his childhood through his wedding, and shares 50 songs that represent critical moments in his life. He emphasizes that these aren't what he considers the best songs of all time--that is too daunting a list by far. Instead, these are songs that are personally significant. Tweedy's list is fresh, surprising, and eclectic, containing recordings by Otis Redding ("Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay"), Billie Eilish ("I Love You"), Deep Purple ("Smoke on the Water"), and Bob Dylan ("Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"), among many others. As Tweedy shares his experiences with each song and describes how it affected his relationships with music and songwriting, he is charming, intimate, and entertaining. VERDICT Tweedy's charisma shines throughout this outstanding blend of memoir, music appreciation, and all-around joy. The journey through Tweedy's musical history will have listeners hitting pause to check out the many songs he references.--Erin Cataldi

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The Wilco front man muses on 50 favorite songs. Describing his latest as a "weird little book of love letters to songs," Tweedy offers a deeply personal, Dylan-esque, "philosophical" take on the works that have influenced him as a songwriter and a person. Woven in and out of his diverse choices are Rememories, "dreamlike passages recounting specific events" in his life. A "bong-bruised, coughed-up lung of a song," Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" made the "first dent in my musical mind." Next, the author writes about how Leo Sayer's "Long Tall Glasses" makes him think about his father. Bob Dylan is Tweedy's favorite artist, and he chooses "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" because it's the first of Dylan's songs he fell for. Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" feels "like it's been a part of me for as long as I've had a me to feel," and Patti Smith's "Horses" is a "shard of poetry sung with the spirit and cadence of a taunt." At age 12, Tweedy was blown away by "My Sharona"--and still is. Whenever he thinks about Volcano Suns' "Balancing Act," he feels "frozen forever in the amber of my youth." The New Lost City Rambler's "Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down" helped the miserable teenaged author feel better, and the Minutemen's "History Lesson--Part II" is the "ground on which I stand." The song "Little Johnny Jewel," by Television, "simultaneously ripped me apart and held me together." Tweedy adores the Ramones and "The Weight," especially the version with Mavis Staples from The Last Waltz. In the early days of Wilco, he often sang Carole King's "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" as an encore. He wishes he had written Souled American's "Before Tonight," and his jog down memory lanes closes with the Staple Singers' "I'll Take You There." Easygoing and thoroughly entertaining. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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1 Smoke on the Water I'd love to claim that at the age of six, hearing the brief passage of Mozart (incorrectly identified as Rachmaninoff) performed in the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was the catalyst that set me on my way to a lifetime of music-making . . . or that I was somehow introduced to some Jacques Brel or Leonard Cohen by an eccentric den mother at a Cub Scout meeting and I never looked back, having immediately absorbed the nuance and depth of the wordplay and how the simple melodic arcs embrace eternity . . . In fact, I'd much prefer to have you believe just about anything other than what truthfully made the first dent in my musical mind. That's because the truth is that it was "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. It kills me to admit this for a lot of reasons. Foremost of which is the fact that as I grew older and as this song maintained an ominous loitering presence on the airwaves of St. Louis rock radio, it became more and more indefensible as something I could admit to myself that I liked. Things were different then. Without much else to distinguish ourselves from each other as adolescents (fewer clothing options, same shoes, our moms all cut our hair), we were forced to broadcast our allegiances (jock, nerd, sosh, etc.) by the music we professed to love. By the time I was a full-blown teenager, this bong-bruised, coughed-up lung of a song had evolved, in terms of the people who liked it at the time, to signify a distinct type of danger to a sensitive boy like myself. Kind of the way some insects develop brightly colored wings to tell predators, "Trust me, you're better off not fucking with me." This song came to indicate a certain toxicity, in other words. But alas, I cannot deny its importance to me, and countless others, as a budding musician. Because the fact is, this riff (I'm not even sure I could speak to the rest of the song considering how much I've avoided it in the nearly fifty years since my first introduction; I know it has something to do with Frank Zappa and some semiautobiographical band exploit, but to me, even if I HAD paid more attention to the words, this riff is so dunderheaded and massive it blots out the sun-hippie mumbo jumbo lyrics don't stand a chance) . . . this riff is absolutely the first thing I ever played on a guitar, back when I was seven or eight years old. This, my friends, was the "Seven Nation Army" of my day. The likelihood you could teach yourself these four notes on the bottom string of a guitar within a few minutes was very very high. So I must bow to the rock gods. Who cares if it took a riff so demeaning and dumb to instill a little belief in myself as a potential musician. We all start somewhere. I started with "Smoke on the" goddamn "Water." 2 Long Tall Glasses You know, not everything that ends up having a profound influence in your life is easily identified as enjoyable. In fact, I think I could safely argue that it's pretty rare for life lessons to be imparted free of concern and full of mirth. Songs, or at least most of the songs I've chosen to talk about here, are unique in that way. They really can teach with serenity, form wisdom while the mind drifts carelessly, or even shine a little light into the dark corners of a banging head. But not always. There are still important kernels of knowledge that can only be whipped into us through discomforting experience. Take this Leo Sayer song for example. Sure, it seems pleasant enough. And taken as a single dose, I'm almost certain one would recover fairly quickly from its mild toxins. But let's take this same song and play it . . . oh . . . let's say roughly forty-five times between six p.m. and nine p.m. on weekday evenings, and upwards of seventy times a day on the weekends. Let's continue this ritual for several months and try to imagine the world-warping effect this little ditty might have on one's psyche. If it weren't for the fact that I believe my father sincerely enjoyed such a routine, I would find it easy to subscribe to the possibility that the method behind such madness was in service to a DARPA program set up by the DOD to study the mind-altering potential inherent in repeated exposure to a single insipid storytelling pop song. If you're unfamiliar with the song . . . first of all, CONGRATULATIONS . . . but I should give you a little outline of what its "deal" is. It's a musical tale of a man down on his luck (natch) who stumbles upon an establishment offering up food and drink to one and all. It goes on to describe said spread (which is where he unloads one of the most diabolically infuriating rhymes of all time: "There was ham and there was turkey / There was caviar / And long tall glasses / With wine up to . . . YAR"). It ambles along for a while before we get to the kicker: If he wants to partake in the bounty before him, he's gonna have to dance for it. But alas, he doesn't know how to dance, and he's sad, the music is sad, we're sad . . . but then . . . but THEN . . . Spoiler alert: Turns out he CAN dance after all. Incredible. At this point in the song the refrain "You know I CAN'T dance" sung like a donkey doing a Bogart impression becomes "I CAN dance!" This is the moment where my beer maudlin-ed father would jump out of his chair and spill his Pabst (Extra Light) dancing and bellowing along. "I CAN DANCE!" EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. So what did I learn from this hardship? Why am I writing about this particular song in a book designed to highlight the inspiration I've taken from the music I've consumed? Well, I guess I'm not sure how to answer that. But I can tell you that at the time this was all happening, I was sure I was learning about things I would never do and ways that I would never be. As a musician, as a songwriter, as a father, and as a human, I guess. Every now and then I throw this song on, and as I sit and listen, as this smug bauble of pop arcana winds its way through the paths in my mind that it's beaten down to dust, the memories of my father become so vivid I swear I can smell him. I am with him again. But this time without judgment. Only joy for his joy. Name something else in the world that can do that. Excerpted from World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music by Jeff Tweedy All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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