I’m writing this issue from somewhere in Nevada, or maybe Idaho. I’m in the passenger seat of a built-out RAV-4 on a long drive to Brooklyn. I chose this playlist because when I’m on the road it feels right to listen to what I call “mountain music:” Deja Vu (1970), All Things Must Pass (1970), Blonde on Blonde (1966), Blue (1971)… the list goes on. Think slide acoustic guitars, pedal steel, and cowboy hats.
I actually love to drive, although I’m a passenger on most of this particular journey, to be in the car with all my little niceties tucked into the crannies of my car for easy access. I like to ride with the windows down, music high. The landscape outside the window is giving me No Country for Old Men (2007) vibes, although we’re getting into the midwest, not Texas.
I made this playlist around the time I did my first big drive, from Berkeley to Phoenix. At the beginning of the pandemic, when I refused to fly, I resolved to travel by road twelve hours to my hometown with my trusty Subaru Stella, lots of water, and many playlists.
“Cry Baby Cry” is one of my favorite Beatles songs. I love the severe panning that was trendy at the time, the jangling piano, and the solid bass line. These elements make various appearances on other tracks of The White Album; “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” “Julia,” and “Mother Nature’s Son” come to mind. The title of this playlist comes from the completely unrelated outro of the song, a whimsical little guitar-centered verse.
Homegrown (2020) was released right as I was discovering Neil Young’s solo discography. It consists of material recorded June 1974 and January 1975, written and recorded during the deterioration of his relationship with Carrie Snodgress. He says it’s ties together his other most famous records, Harvest (1972), Comes a Time (1978), Old Ways (1985), and Harvest Moon (1992). He told an interviewer, “It was a little too personal… it scared me.” Finally, we’re hearing the lost songs from one of the hardest periods of his life, and they are some of what I think is his best work, intense and heartfelt. “Kansas” was among my favorite songs of 2020:
Hold on, baby, hold on
It doesn't matter if you're the one
We'll know before we're done
Wilco is one of my favorite bands ever. Until a couple of years ago, I had only listened to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002), and even then had very limited knowledge of anything outside “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.” I found out through a friend that the rest of the Wilco discography is right in my wheelhouse—folk-rock sung by a man with an imperfect, endearing voice. Wilco is the band I listen to when I’m not sure what I’m in the mood for, my home base.
Jeff Tweedy, Wilco frontman, has worn many hats—solo artist, touring musician, husband, father. His autobiography Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) (2018) is vulnerable, covering his childhood, struggle with addiction, formation and break-up of Uncle Tupelo, and the drama surrounding Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Wilco was dropped from their label Reprise after Jeff Tweedy refused to make stylistic changes to the record to make it more marketable, while then-member of Wilco Jay Bennett wanted to embrace the more palatable sound; conflicts with Bennett later led to his exodus from the band. They eventually took the unaltered record to Nonesuch, who released it with much commercial success. Interestingly enough, Reprise and Nonesuch are both imprints of AOL Time Warner, meaning that Wilco transferred flavor of executives more than labels and the sales profits from the record ended up in the same upstream account in the end anyway. The record industry, for all its efforts, doesn’t really know what listeners want or like. The fact that the success of artists is still based on the individual preferences and whims of managerial staff is what keeps many great records from reaching the public.
But luckily, we do have some amazing albums, like those featured on this playlist. “Blackbird,” also from The Beatles, was the first song I ever learned on guitar, and soon after that I played covers of Simon & Garfunkel tunes. Mountain music is what I believe to be the core of my individual taste. It’s the thing I return to when I’m feeling lost. Country roads, take me home.