Wilco‘s A Ghost Is Born cannot be fully understood without the story of its predecessor, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001). That story has been so widely shared and popularized over the years that it begs not retelling here. Sam Jones’ black-and-white documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart does a pretty good job. Not to mention, we have heard “Jesus, Etc.” plenty, as it was arguably the only song to supplant the Shins’ “New Slang” as most likely to change your life. Plus, indie rock stations include “Heavy Metal Drummer” throwback plays every hour of every day, at least somewhere in America. We get it. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a fucking good record. One that paradoxically benefitted from label issues and a critical band member being asked to depart. Is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot a perfect record in hindsight? That’s not really for me to weigh in on here, but it does make their next effort, A Ghost Is Born, especially relevant.
It may be worth the extra effort to go a little further back to a time when Wilco weren’t a name your parents knew. From the ashes of Uncle Tupelo, we were blessed with two competing bands, Wilco and Son Volt. Son Volt had the better first record, and a lot of Jay Farrar’s songs with Uncle Tupelo were more refined (“Whiskey Bottle”, “Moonshiner”, “Chickamauga”, “Anodyne”). Although only a year apart, Farrar was the polished elder statesman, and Jeff Tweedy was the upstart shit-kicker. In retrospect, much of the acclaim for their classic Anodyne (1993) can be attributed to Tweedy’s contributions (“Acuff-Rose”, “New Madrid”, “The Long Cut”). Nobody was surprised when Son Volt broke first out of the gates. What was surprising was how Wilco’s sound developed by leaps and bounds following their debut record, A.M. (1995). That development can be largely attributed to the addition of Jay Bennett, the same tossed-aside multi-instrumentalist from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Wilco transformed with the addition of Bennett, another guitarist and an adept keyboardist, which they were sorely lacking. The double album Being There (1996) was a tall order for most listeners in the mid-1990s, but the makings of the discordant, experimental, and sensitive Wilco were all there. Compare the last minute of “Misunderstood” to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’s “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”, and the biggest difference is how each song devolves. The next record, Summerteeth (1999), was brilliant all around, and a lot of the new direction can be attributed to Bennett’s influence and flourishes—literal bells (maybe not whistles). The sound was sunny and filled with major chords (“Can’t Stand It”). It integrated Beach Boys harmonies (“Nothing’severgonnastandinmywayagain”) and wicked synthesizers (“I’m Always In Love”) to soften some depressing themes. Notwithstanding a few beautiful, sad sack numbers (“How to Fight Loneliness” and “Via Chicago”), Wilco had evolved completely.
While Bennett contributed to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco went in another direction. That is what made A Ghost Is Born such a pivotal moment in Wilco’s growth and development. They couldn’t recreate Yankee Hotel Foxtrot because nobody could. They were now way more advanced than vocals, guitar, bass, and drums, which was evident by the six members. Wilco had to find their footing once again. Despite their best efforts, they couldn’t live up to the expectations no matter how hard they tried. What listeners received, in turn, was a brilliant and flawed opus that contains some of the best tracks and concert burners in the Wilco catalog. A Ghost Is Born could never live up to the expectations, but it remains the last foothold in the greatest Wilco era.
When people speak about Wilco’s experimentation, it’s often related to the noisiness and discordant ornamentation added to largely true-to-form tracks. Songs may clangor from time to time, but the core remains. That’s not necessarily the case with many songs on A Ghost Is Born. Jim O’Rourke becomes another seminal figure for Wilco as producer and contributor on the album. O’Rourke also served as an engineer and played on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, in addition to being a member of Tweedy’s side-project Loose Fur in 2003. While all three of those albums are perhaps more experimental due to O’Rourke, they were fairly poppy according to his sensibility. As a producer, O’Rourke encouraged Tweedy to become a more adept guitarist, and that, in combination with Wilco trying out new sounds, created a new synergy.
Setting aside the 12 minutes of feedback on “Less Than What You Think”, the most experimental tracks are listener-friendly in the way that Television is proto-punk ear candy for hipsters. In this manner, Wilco put forth new song structures that matched their sonic variance. “At Least That’s What You Said” begins subdued, with hushed vocals about domestic violence over a stark piano. When the music stops, the lone guitar rips into a frenzy. The initial choppiness makes the song abrasive, but it grooves along despite the occasional fits and starts filled with distortion. It is a mere distraction to the melody that carries the song until it ultimately tires. “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” follows the epic structure of Television’s “Marquee Moon”, with an almost identical return to the central riff, which recurs throughout. Compared to Television, Wilco’s track may be all acid and no jazz, but it is equally vibrant.
Some of Wilco’s most beloved songs feature on A Ghost Is Born. “Handshake Drugs” is perhaps the most obvious bridge between the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot recording sessions and this work. Tweedy was prescribed painkillers to deal with migraines at that time, which was filmed in voyeuristic detail in I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, where viewers witnessed him retching in a studio bathroom. The surprise wasn’t that he became addicted to the stuff; it was that he did the most anti-rock-and-roll thing and checked himself into rehab, got sober, and moved on to recording eight subsequent albums to date. That was right before the release of A Ghost Is Born, so what listeners hear on “Handshake Drugs” is his testimonial. The lyrics still ring true: “Saxophones started blowing me down / I was buried in sound, taxicabs were driving me around / To the handshake drugs I bought downtown.” The scattered guitar flourishes and dissonant outro speak to Tweedy’s mental state but also connect with other sonic themes throughout the album.
“Theologians” is another classic in the Wilco oeuvre. Similar to “Handshake Drugs”, the jaunty melody belies something darker lurking underneath. Were it not for the suggestion that the singer is merely emotional, listeners might think this is a plea for help: “I’m going away / Where you will look for me / Where I’m going you cannot come / No one’s ever gonna take my life from me / I lay it down / A ghost is born.” Those are some of the darkest lyrics we have heard from Wilco, and the next track, “Less Than You Think”, suggests that maybe this is a crisis. “Theologians” is also responsible for the album title, which is part of a larger narrative, even though it has never been presented as a concept album per see.
The rub with A Ghost Is Born is our inability to understand the vision—assuming it was fully hatched. One might guess that the overarching theme is the transitory state of being, going through hell and finding one’s way back, or consumerism’s all-encompassing presence. Maybe it is all of the above or none. That is what makes A Ghost Is Born such a conundrum. Of course, everything doesn’t need to equate, but there is clearly some effort to produce a comprehensive body of work, as even the album cover suggests. Thematically, A Ghost Is Born is nearly fleshed out. Unfortunately, “Hummingbird”, contains strings and Beatles’ Abbey Road-era stylings that do not entirely fit; “I’m a Wheel” is fine for Being There-era Wilco, assuming we want to go back; and “Wishful Thinking” could be an excellent complement to Summerteeth (assuming that album wasn’t already perfect) but not here.
The most significant departure that challenges A Ghost Is Born as a unified work of art is closer, “The Late Greats”, which is not a bad stand-alone song and would make a superb encore, assuming this is a concert. After listening to some bleak lyrics on “Less Than You Think” and a dozen minutes of noise (although I hope listeners would choose to skip), it brings up the mood. Perhaps a band oddly similar to Wilco was resurrected in the interim (we shall never know). Where most great albums have a closer that distills the best elements of what you just heard, harkens back to some motif that was buried within, or leaves you reverberating and ready to hit play again, A Ghost Is Born takes a different path. It offers listeners something entirely unrelated to anything that came before.
In the aftermath of A Ghost Is Born, Wilco will never be the same. The next iteration of the group featured Nels Cline, a virtuoso guitarist who pushed Tweedy in different ways. Not surprisingly, “Impossible Germany” betters “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” in its ambitions to mimic Television, as the dual guitars’ jazzy interplay more closely aligns with the Tom Verlaine classic. Maybe due to the addition of Cline or just maturity, Tweedy began channeling his ambition and has since assumed the role of alternative country elder statesman. Sure, there is a certain amount of risk in exploring Wilco’s whims, whether it be breaking from the regular release cycle, such as dropping a free-download album with no notice (Star Wars in 2015), or in terms of exploring their influences, like Cruel Country (2022), which returned to their country roots.
The success of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot created a moment when Wilco’s future was wide open. They could do no wrong and had only themselves to better with the next release. In retrospect, Wilco did what so many other greats had done in the past and doubled down on their ambition (think the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band following Revolver or the Clash’s Sandinista! after London Calling). Wilco had to push the envelope even further and, in this case, come up a little short. Still, we can remain grateful for the effort because fans are left with a near classic that features some of Tweedy’s best songwriting and first-rate playing, not to mention the album’s unforgettable production. At its core, A Ghost Is Born was driven by a fearlessness that Wilco has yet to match again.