Review: Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy Shares the Music that Shaped His Life in New Book ‘World Within a Song’

Wilco once said, I wonder why we listen to poets when nobody gives a fuck, but Jeff Tweedy wants everyone to know that he does indeed give a fuck. In his new book World Within a Song, Tweedy takes readers on a journey from his early childhood listening to a crate of obscure records from his older brother and waiting for the extended version of “My Sharona” to come on the radio, to hating “I Will Always Love You” and imploring people to, please, stop requesting “Free Bird” at concerts, it’s a bad joke.

Throughout the book, Tweedy marvels at humanity’s shared experiences through music. “The lesson hasn’t been that my perspective is so unique it must be shared so as to enlighten,” he writes in the introduction. “It’s more that I’ve learned that I’m not alone. I’m not a freak to care about this as much as I do.”

Although, as Tweedy writes, that doesn’t mean we all experience a song in exactly the same way. “It doesn’t matter how many people hear ‘A Day in the Life,’” he writes as an example, “there is only one version that belongs to you.” Songs touch our lives in similar yet different ways. The song is the same, but the experience and reception are wholly unique to the individual. For another example, some people get full body chills in a good way when they hear “Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi, and while Tweedy might say you’re wrong and you should feel bad about it, that’s part of the unique experience of listening to music: finding what produces those goosebumps time after time.

“I don’t think you should ever override what your body is telling you about a song,” Tweedy writes to that effect. “Life’s too short to let your critical thinking get in the way of being moved by music.”

The book is also interspersed with what Tweedy calls Rememories, where he recalls a poignant, humorous, or downright shady moment from his life. Sometimes the Rememories are related to the song he’s just written about, sometimes they’re just snapshots from his childhood. But they serve the purpose of giving readers a look behind the curtain of Tweedy’s life. Not always with a lot of context, but the dreamlike memories open up his life for people who are maybe reading his work for the first time.

A few chapters are lacking at times, but Tweedy makes up for that where it really counts. Such as when he describes “Loud, Loud, Loud” by Aphrodite’s Child from 1972, or “In Germany Before the War” by Randy Newman from 1977. Of “In Germany Before the War,” he writes, “I do think about it often when I’m trying to get a recording I’m working on to tell the listener where to look when the words alone can’t. When I’m trying my best to get people to look at the river but think of the sea, as the chorus of this song says.” He continues, “A simple couplet that somehow perfectly captures the disassociation of a serial killer and at the same time tells you exactly how music works. How an illusion can be built upon the genuine discomfort of a major melody over a minor harmony chord.”

It’s those little tidbits about Tweedy’s writing process that make this book an overall gem despite some of its weaker chapters. Later in the book, he shares more snippets of his writing and composing life, which any Wilco fan will appreciate. It’s the chance to see the master at work if you will, even though World Within a Song is entirely about other people’s songs. Still, there’s no denying the major thread of the book: the profound influence these songs have had on Tweedy’s life and work, in good ways and bad ways.

World Within a Song both celebrates and questions this collection of songs in turn, and fans will come away feeling like they know Tweedy a little bit more. His life, his influences, his process, and his all-encompassing love of music.

World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music is out now through Penguin Random House.

(Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)