Poured Over: Jeff Tweedy on World Within a Song

By Jenna Seery / November 23, 2023 at 6:00 am

In Jeff Tweedy’s newest book World Within a Song, the accomplished musician shares fifty influential songs that have shaped his life and career and shows us how music can create connection for all. Tweedy joins us to talk about the impact of music on identity, the shared qualities between his different mediums, his thoughts on authenticity and more with guest host, Jenna Seery.

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Jenna Seery and mixed by Harry Liang.             

Featured Books (Episode):
World Within a Song by Jeff Tweedy
How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy
Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) by Jeff Tweedy
This Is Not a Novel by David Markson
The Tunnel by William H. Gass
The World Within the World by William H. Gass

Full Episode Transcript
Jenna Seery
I’m Jenna Seery, a bookseller and associate producer of Poured Over and today I’m very excited to be joined by Jeff Tweedy, I know that you are familiar with the incredible amount of music he has put out for us in the world of bands like Uncle Tupelo and Wilco and as himself. And he’s the author of some incredible books, How to Write One Song and Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back). But now his newest book is World Within a Song is a collection of his favorite songs, how they changed his life, and some great memories along the way, as well. So thanks so much for being with us, Jeff.

Jeff Tweedy
Thanks for having me.

JS
You’ve always been out here making music; you’ve now moved into the world of books. And you’ve put out two already — one on your life one on songwriting. At what moment were you like, you know what, I have another book in me. And there’s one more I want to write.

I think that maybe when I finished the last book, How to Write One Song, that book felt so good to finish. And it felt like getting to write about something I really think about a lot. I mean, the memoir is really a strange form, to you know, for a book, especially for somebody living a life, I’m hopefully not anywhere near finishing, you know, by the time I finished the second book, I guess, I think I started to really enjoy the process and started trying to think of another book that maybe would be fun to write.

And you play with form for a book in this as well. I mean, you’ve got like 50 songs that you lay out for us. And then you’ve got these sections interspersed, that you call them, your rememories, and that they are anecdotes and pieces from your life. And they range from funny to heartbreaking, and all sorts of things in between. How did you know you wanted to sort of create this method and this model of a book.

You know, this style of rememories in particular, kind of started writing like that, that was maybe the original idea for this book. Before it started focusing around other people’s songs. And that’s inspired by the author David Markson, and the way he writes, I don’t really pretend to come anywhere near the masterful sentence construction that David Markson has in his books. But the shape of it, the form of it, is, he has a series of books, I think there’s four of them, Readers Block, This is Not a Novel, I think I can’t remember the other two, Vanishing Point anyway, his books, incorporate these really small sentences, really short paragraphs, and they really propel you along. I really like reading his books for that purpose, for that reason is like, it was just such a momentum to it. At some point, when he finished reading his books, and I’ve read and reread his books quite a bit. You start thinking in those types of sentences, and I just started writing down some of my own memories, kind of emulating that style.

I mean, there’s some very interesting moments. And I think they give a glimpse into this long life that really reflects not only just the moments where you’re like, Oh, this is the music that affects me, but it shows the way that music has really always been connected to your life. It’s not just these are songs I like it’s these are songs, sometimes you don’t even really love them, but they had an impact on you.

Yeah, I think it’s, I mean, honestly, I think that a very similar book could have been written out 50 different songs, the individual memories would be different, but the I think the point would be the same. And that is that songs are really, really good at absorbing our memories and our personalities, and reflecting back to us a deeper understanding of who we are, you know, they certainly help us remember things that otherwise I think would be difficult to recall what such vivid detail of these thugs are just really, really personal, unique forms of art. I don’t know, I just I love songs and I think that the point is, everybody has their own relationship with a song, nobody’s version of a song is the same. You know, like, we can all listen to the newest whatever, you know, Taylor Swift song and we’re all going to put it together in our memories in a slightly different way. And over time our relationship with it is going to become so unique. That I really think it’s a different, I think it’s a different thing for everybody.

I mean, one of the first songs you talk about, it might be the first song is Smoke on the Water, which I think like a lot of people out there have a relationship to that song, whether it’s good or annoying or bad, or what have you. But it really started me into thinking like, what are some of those first songs that you remember connecting to? And I think you talk about something really interesting right away about identity that you know, I I’m also from the Midwest. And I think that there’s like a very, like, sometimes homogenous way of existing and you talk about how that for a while, the only way to sort of show your identity was by what music you were listening to, and how that sort of started to shape you very early on. I had like a really similar I remember, once I we were all supposed to like bring our favorite songs to school and I brought like Voodoo by Godsmack because that’s what I was listening to at home much to my parents sadnesses but you know, I think that those really early identity forming moments, they start to put us on a path.

Yeah, for sure. There’s something really interesting about being asked to pick a song that represents us, and then the vulnerability that you feel like in a serious circumstance like that, I bet you are, you know, equal parts exhilarated to play something so aggressive, as a representation of who you know, the shape you saw yourself, then. And then also a little bit scared, I would have bet to reveal that much of yourself. And then it’s really fascinating that someone else’s art could reveal so much about yourself. And that’s kind of good. I think that’s another one of the main points of the book.

I imagined too, for someone who creates music, to be able to say, these are the songs that helped create me and then to know what that would feel like I guess, as a musician to have someone else say that about your work. I’m sure it puts a lot of weight into like these choices you make. And like you said, I’m sure that you could have written this book 50 times over with a unique 50 sets of songs. But putting it all out there together, it’s a vulnerable thing.

I guess. So. I mean, I think I’ve always been a little bit overconfident in my sharing the combination of extremely vulnerable and also maybe a little deluded and oblivious to the dangers of being an overshare or welcoming so much perceived scrutiny, I guess I just don’t see how my experience can be that unique. I guess, on one hand, that’s a really solipsistic way of looking at the world, pretty myopic. I don’t mean it like that. I don’t mean like everybody is like me. I just mean that. I guess if I’m able to identify some way that I’ve interacted with the world and existed in the world. The likelihood is that there are many other people that have similar experience. I think it isn’t.

I think music in so many ways for so many people is the easiest thing to relate to. I mean, I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t have a favorite song or a favorite band. I’m sure that they have to exist, but I maybe just have avoided them, I think. I think that even though your 50 songs are not the same as mine, and there were a lot of music that I didn’t know, but at the same time, as you were explaining the experiences and why you felt the way about the songs, I could easily point to five songs in my own life that I was like, I know that feeling because I’ve listened to “blank”.

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s beyond whatever high aspirations I would have had for the writing the book. But now that it’s written and people have been reacting to it, I feel really good about that. I keep getting that feedback. That is like a jumping off point. It’s like the book isn’t really finished when you finish it because it creates some sort of internal had no dialogue. It’s like it’s being written in this in the negative space inside of the reader, which is kind of the way songs work too, which is pretty, pretty amazing. I didn’t intend to do that. I’m not smart enough to do that. But I think it’s a lot a lot of people told me that that like you read it and you read my, you know, a story that I relate to a certain song and inevitably makes people start to think about songs in their life and that say same way.

I think literature like good writing and a good song run really parallel in that, like, you can experience them by yourself. But at the same time, they’re always acts of community, they’re always a dialogue around what is a good song? And how does it make you feel? And what is a good book? And how does it make you feel? I think when they find that point where they meet, it just really brings sort of two groups of people together into what is going to be a great conversation.

That’s one of the unique qualities of songs and books, books have a much longer history that we can touch and experience than music. I mean, there’s music that’s been written, probably since humans have existed, or are performed, or maybe not written, it hasn’t been written for very long. The documentation is harder to come by then old, very old books, for example, it is a really unique thing to be reminded that someone else existed in another period. And another time, it was a moment that this happened. And it’s really great to remind yourself of those connections to the past and to other humans, and to the desire to reach out, you know, and make this connection, like the desire to write this desire to sing. I think that it’s all good, good stuff. I don’t think it hurts anybody.

I think especially some of your descriptions of like moments where you saw music performed live, and you know, as also someone who performs live music, like, I know, we lost some of that time during COVID. But I think those are really like crystal clear depictions of that moment where you’re like listening to a song live for the first time. And maybe you don’t even know it yet. But you know, it’s going to be something that connects to you, or a band that connects to you. Those are moments where I think even from any kind of music you listen to, once you have that experience, you just know it and you really capture that those some of those moments well of Oh, no, this is how it feels.

Yeah, thank you. Bands are lived example. I’ve always been fascinated with, like, towns that have scenes music scenes, like, how does that happen? And I think it’s just, there’s a model behavior that just happens to begin with one band, or some, like, maybe they got it from an older brother, or maybe they just like, really curious about the world and reached out beyond the borders of the small town and figured out, you know, a way to do something, and then there’s 10 other bands, almost immediately, because that behavior is easy to emulate, and it looks like a good strategy for taking, taking your care of yourself. And so having something to do.

Absolutely. Something also from your book that I really like had awareness for that the world isn’t quite the same for anymore is this idea of like the radio in general, and finding new music on the radio and having to like, copy it down. There was a radio station that was local to me that every like Sunday night would play an entire new album. And I would just like wait, and listen, because I would need to know what that was going to be. And I think sort of that discovery and that wonder, like, I love streaming and having everything accessible at all times is perfect. But sometimes I think a little bit of that mystery is gone.

Yeah, I’m always really careful not to be an old person that, you know, saying, Sure, doom and gloom about new technology. I think it all at a price. And I also think it all comes with new possibilities. And one door closes and another one opens that we can’t proceed maybe even but I do tend to believe that there was something beautiful about not just radio, but also buying records before you heard them. Which doesn’t really happen anymore. I don’t think very often. Maybe some people still do that. But they’re probably my age, you know, like save that save hearing it for when they finally have the physical product or something. But that’s another way that that the art gets integrated into the person and into the perception of self that somebody might have because then there’s an investment there’s a you’ve actually put time and some in own back in the past money. You know, if you actually put some of your hard earned money on betting on this thing, and that tended to create from my experience, and I’ve talked to a lot of other people my age, like you would have to give us a record a lot more chances to reach you. And, and the fact is a lot of music requires that requires a certain commitment to really sit down and understand it and wrap your head around it. It’s not always immediate. And I know that some of the most important records, to me are records that I did not like, at first, you know, they, they were very hard one, I don’t know if that happens as much.

I think that that is also such a that’s another great parallel for books. And you know, there’s books we read when we’re like 15 years old, and they just do not work for us. And you can come back to it later in life and be like, oh, yeah, wait, actually, I just wasn’t like in the right space, or I didn’t know enough yet. And it’s, I feel the same thing about music. I mean, there’s so many great, incredible bands and songs that when I was younger, or the first time I heard it, I was like, No, that is just never going to be for me. And then it hits you at a different point in your life. And you’re like, What was I thinking? I have made a terrible mistake.

Absolutely. I think most like most canonical literature is prescribed to people that aren’t ready for it. Just really, like the idea of Western, you know, classic, go Anglo Saxon works. Most kids today, my age even you know, and, you know, I don’t know, maybe before my generation, I don’t know, were more worldly, or their educations were better, or something like that. I just feel like most people get books, when they’re not ready for them. They’re not like they have I don’t have enough life experience for them. I don’t know that it’s that much different for a lot of records. I think that a lot of records come at people, before they’ve built the base level of, of living an understanding of living, to relate to them, you know?

I think like, I can think there’s definitely a lot of songs that I could not have related at all to the lyrics, like, terribly sad breakup songs, or like, you know, just like really intense things that I was, you know, a kid and listening to, but because the musicality of it is so good. You still connect to it in such a way, and then you come back later, and you’re like, I was like, seven years old singing about some man that left me I didn’t know.

Yeah, like, I have one of those in the book with Bob Dylan “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”. You know, like, what? I really felt that song in my bones and had never been anywhere or done anything or just a girl. It’s a really strange phenomenon.

I think, though, if there’s anyone who’s gonna, like get into your soul like that, Bob Dylan is absolutely at the top of that list.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe he was able to tap into some ancestral memory or something like that. And that exists in any, any way in our DNA, I would imagine. I personally kind of think that it has to somehow we are born knowing maybe a little bit more than, than we know, we know.

And I think that music access is like very primal parts of us as humans and hits like, parts of our lizard brain that is beyond just what we know, and what we can, like, prescribe into words. So sometimes there are the songs here like I could never and will never have really felt this and yet, you feel it.

Music is, is scientifically good. It sounds like there’s really, really pleasant combinations of notes and you can really account for it, but it’s just humans here and a certain spectrum. And a certain our sensory apparatus is really, really tickled to get like these kernels of sound that make us happy. And you know, like, it’s just pretty incredible stuff.

It is. And I think it’s hard to write about music, because it is such a different sense for a lot of people. But I think for someone who is immersed in it as you are, it probably comes off a little bit differently. But how does it feel to write about music versus performing it on stage or, you know, writing songs, does it hit a different place in your brain?

I mean, in a lot of ways, I think it’s me before I was I’ve really was passionate about records and music before I was a musician. It was what led me to see myself in that shape and want to be that but before that, I thought about it a lot and cared enough to read about it a lot. And so I kind of think it’s the most natural state for me is to not critique necessarily. I don’t have that much interest in that. I’m just fascinated with the connections and how things do what they do, how songs do what they do.

I would say like, we need more books about this, but I also am like, I think it’s also very easy to maybe write not badly about music. I think there’s a lot of people who write without passion about music. I think that it’s something that when you know, you know, just the same as you know, when a song comes from a place of emotion and passion that when you read that writing, you know it as well.

Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of theories of why people have a difficult time explaining music to somebody, first of all, I mean, that just that sentence sounds ridiculous. If, you know, if you could tell somebody a melody, you wouldn’t need a record, or we would, I mean, would need a song. I mean, I’ve said that a million times, but it’s also probably a cliche from 1000 years now. Just like, it’s some, some combination of, of a melody and lyrics that come something else. But so there’s a lot, I think there’s a lot of insecurity, in the way people approach writing about music. On one hand, they probably they’ve chosen to write about music have absorbed so much music, that it is part of their the way they see themselves in their identity, too. So there’s some desire to protect that, and not be thought or not having, you know — I think there’s a lot of barriers to writing about it in a pure sense, in the spirit that it’s really created, you know, and then when spirit that music is created, I think in general, I think it’s harder but hard to write about it in that same spirit.

I think also something interesting that gets applied to both music and literature is this idea of authenticity. Like, who is allowed to write about it, who’s who has like an authentic voice in a subject. I think sometimes people worry maybe also that someone’s going to say, you don’t get to write about this, because you haven’t done this, this and this. But I think for something like music, all you need to do is like listen to music. And I think you have the authenticity you need.

Yeah, there are definitely gatekeepers to the authenticity of artists in the music world, you know, a way people against each other for their bona fides for, especially in like, the type of music I’ve been somewhat associated with a lot in my life roots music, or country music, folk music, that tends to narrow people’s perceptions of who’s allowed, I stopped worrying about authenticity a long, long time ago, I actually, it was just really a simple revelation, I just thought that the people that I most enjoy listening to, I’m more most moved by discovering sound like they don’t care about. And there’s like, there’s no failure possible. Because the act is so pure in and of itself. Like, they couldn’t be aware of us an image or a persona, or, you know, something like that. And I don’t know, that really kind of set me free from those types of concerns. As far as who’s allowed and conversations like that. I’m a believer in imagination. And I think you should encourage people to empathize with each other with their imaginations and fantasize about who they can be and what especially young people be given the freedom to, to envision themselves as anything.

I agree. I mean, I think there’s so much like potential, and I see that like, new crops of people, new artists coming up creating some really incredible things. And sometimes, you know, someone like Billie Eilish, who you mentioned, and you know, when I first heard of her, she was literally a kid and thinking like, wow, there are still these kids that are coming up and are creating this incredible music and for all the, you know, maybe feeling old saying and being like, Get off my lawn about, you know, records or the radio. At the same time, there’s still so much potential and it’s so exciting to watch like new groups and new people create.

Yeah, absolutely. And there’s some of them I just, I can’t quite grasp because they’re, they’re basing their communication on a language that I haven’t learned, you know, like they they’ve, they’ve heard a whole different subset of music that I don’t have the background and to hear where it’s coming from and what you know. sometimes it breaks through somebody like Billie Eilish, I think I probably respond to it. Because there’s a curiosity that’s very evident in her music and her brother’s music, they are extremely curious about a similar set of cross section of records. And then beyond that, you know, like, I don’t know, you can really hear that they’ve listened to old jazz records, and, and, and hip hop and current pop music. And so it’s all mixed up in a way that’s really appealing to me.

Definitely, there’s always someone who’s ready to sort of teach you a little bit more and push a little bit more, which is exciting and music. But I have to ask also, I mean, you talked a little bit about how you had to narrow it down to the songs 50, it’s a nice number couldn’t really do 52 or 50, you had to stick to 50 for the, for the vibes. But if you could just put like one more song on there. Do you know what it would be if you had to pick just one more?

Oh, my gosh.

Whatever you’d pick today either too, you know, not every day, it could change.

yeah, I mean, when I immediately had, you know, when I really got the sense of the book was completely finished, and I’d read the audio version of it. I really started mourning, the omission of like, dozens and dozens of songs, just started over made them automatically coming to me. I don’t think there’s a Neil Young song, and there, which is kind of crazy. And you should, I think that would be I mean, I could pick almost any Neil Young song.

Do you have like a huge master list that you whittled down? Or was it more like, as you were writing, it was just kind of coming up organically, especially with those pieces mixed in? I was wondering, like, Did you write it in order? Or did you sort of because it is also vaguely chronological? So like, Did you write it in order? Or was it more like, I’m going to piece together this like a puzzle.

All of the above, I mean, I had a list that I would refer to if I got stuck, but for the most part, I tried to just follow my instincts, when I would like when I would finish writing one essay, I would try and respond to it by a lot of times when you’re writing, when I wouldn’t be writing one, I would think of another song while I was writing. And I would try and just go from there to there. Because that that, you know, that felt organic to me, you know, and if I got stuck, I would refer to this list of, you know, artists and songs that I thought I wanted to include. It got reordered rearranged a little bit, but there is some, I think through a construction as to how it was written and how it ended up. You know, I think that’s most evident to me when I read it out loud. Because I feel like the writing gets better. I feel like I feel like I by the end of the book. I like God, I wish I could have written the first part of the book in this way. But I think it’s all pretty much the same voice.

Yeah, definitely. There’s such a fun, it really feels like you’re in conversation with the reader of like, sit down, I’m going to tell you about some music, and it’s going to be a fun conversation. Especially I think the part that I couldn’t get over the most was thinking that your cousin wrote a very famous song, which is something that I think yeah, happens in a lot of like, before we knew all of the music and you just have like one family member who plays one song over and over and you’re like, I’m pretty sure that maybe that’s just their song.

Right? Yeah, I think a lot of our friends are extended families of amateur musicians that that have learned a handful of songs and, you know, tends to be fun thing to break out at a barbecue or, you know, any kind of like a Christmas party or something like that, you know, I shared that with my cousin Debo. It really made him very, very happy.

I mean, cuz I’m both got some great music tastes seems I also have to know I mean, we talked a little bit about books that you know are important to you earlier, but what are some of the books that have sort of made you the reader and writer that you are today? We talked a lot about music, but I got to bring it home for B&N and talk about books too.

I really have been, I think a little bit self conscious about my education most of my life because I was really very curious about the world. but not particularly good at school. And so I, at an early age, I think I’ve always really loved books, loved reading. But at an early age, when it really became obvious that I was that, that academia wasn’t going to pan out for me, I think I took it upon myself to start reading the classics and stuff that I really didn’t want to be the only person that didn’t know, those that don’t know what the conversation was about. A lot of my very favorite books are old, classic, you know, Don Quixote, Moby Dick. I like a lot of sort of experimental fiction writers from the 70s. Like, Robert Coover, and William H Gass is probably my favorite author of all time. And it’s mostly because of the books that he turned me on to, in his literary criticism, he has much more to offer for me. I mean, I’ve, I read as an author of The Tunnel is extremely difficult. And Omensetter’s Lock and other books of his that were fiction and collections of fiction, but the reason I always bring him up is because this book was actually titled after, in loosely after one of his books will The World Within the Word, I think, is what it’s called. similar title. And this books really opened up literature for me, and were like the best teacher, I’d never, you know, I could never really just respond, I don’t ever really develop that connection with a really great teacher. So it wasn’t so much critiquing it was investing and living through and living in literature, and explaining how that’s done and what it takes to not take apart somebody else’s. But to fully enjoy it, you know. So I would, I would say, those books are probably the most important to me.

And I think that’s sort of feels right for how this book ends up and that you are not critiquing these songs, and you’re not, you know, saying a judgment on them, but you are analyzing them in reference to your own life. And I think that that is something that people are really going to respond to and really going to understand. And I have to ask, also, are there more books than you? Do we get more of the Jeff Tweedy literary universe?

I mean, it’s, it really depends on how well the book does you know. Yeah. I mean, I enjoy doing it. And if somebody gives me another opportunity to write a book, I probably will take it because it’s a bit of a painful process. It’s not that not that easy. And you can really regret it that you’ve committed to it in the middle of it. But there’s a really satisfying feeling finishing a book and, and certainly having these conversations about something I’ve written are, are gratifying, because that’s what it is. It’s what is supposed to be it is the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one thing.

Absolutely. Well, selfishly, I hope that there’s more because I am curious to see I mean, you said you could do another 50 songs for the rest, you know, I’m just throwing that out there. But thank you so much for joining us today. I’ve had such a great time talking about music and about worlds within a song and I can’t wait for readers to get their hands on it. So thank you so much.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Nice talking to you.