Tweedy’s songwriting tricks an inspired treat

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This article was published 31/10/2020 (1773 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy has hardly been twiddling his thumbs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 53-year old singer-songwriter and his family started The Tweedy Show, a near-daily video series on Instagram; he recorded and released a solo record, Love is the King; and earlier in October his second book, How to Write One Song, landed in bookstores.

And while it’s diminutive in stature, the 53-year-old Tweedy’s latest book is a worthy companion to his 2018 memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), offering insight into Tweedy’s own songwriting process which he in turn hopes will spur creativity in readers. With hundreds of songs written in his 20-plus years of songwriting and a handful of Grammys with the Chicago-based sextet, it’s safe to say Tweedy knows how to pen a tune.

In the same friendly, down-to-earth writing style that he demonstrated in Let’s Go, Tweedy sets out to help budding songwriters finish (and perform) one song. Music is the focus here, but many tips, tricks and suggestions offered could likely be adapted or modified for creators in other fields.

Why just one song? “Because one song is all it takes to make a connection,” says Tweedy. “I believe that a song being sung is one of the clearest views we ever have to witness how humans reach out for warmth with our art.” Additionally, focusing on one song is less daunting than the prospect of writing an album’s worth of material. Start small and focused, Tweedy says, and once that one song is done, write one more. And one more. And so on.

Tweedy offers concrete exercises in the book which have helped him when he’s gotten stuck and on more than once occasion he uses Wilco songs to demonstrate how the exercises he offers have proven effective.

Lyrically, Tweedy talks about “hot-wiring” language — shuffling nouns, verbs and the like in new and interesting ways while using simple but evocative language. (At this he is a master: lines such as “I am an American aquarium drinker / I assassin down the avenue” or “The ashtray says you’ve been up all night” stick with the listener.)

Musically, meanwhile, Tweedy has plenty of valuable suggestions. Hit a roadblock on your acoustic guitar-driven folk ditty? Switch to another instrument. Try a different tuning. And steal ideas — but in a way that the theft is almost unrecognizable. It’s been happening in rock and roll (and most other genres) for as long as rock and roll has existed.

Tweedy doesn’t purport to have all the answers; there are parts of the songwriting process, even his own, that he simply can’t put into words. “I’m not sure I can demystify something I feel wholly inadequate to explain,” he says about the joining of music and words into song, later adding “It’s a moment that feels more like I’m witnessing something better than me, or better than what I imagined I could make, being born.”

Tweedy’s enthusiasm, humility and wonder about music feel authentic here, while his tips and tricks for songwriters are both practical and achievable, making for a brief but inspired — and inspiring — read.

Free Press literary editor Ben Sigurdson has written a song or two in his time.