Wilco - Jesus, Etc.

"Tall building shake. Voices escape singing sad, sad songs."

Album: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot [4th album]
Genre: Rock, Indie Rock
Recorded: Chicago, Illinois
Album Release: April 23rd 2002
Single Release:
Length: 3:51
Producer: Wilco
Vocalist: Jeff Tweedy [age 35]
Label: Nonesuch Records

Official Audio


Live in 2003


Live on Letterman

Charts, Streams & Sales

USA (albums): #13
Spotify: Over 120 million
YouTube Music: Over 5 million
Paste Magazine's Best Albums of the Decade (2000's): #2
Pitchfork's 200 Best Albums of the 2000's: #4
Rolling Stone's 100 Best Albums of the Decade (2000's): #3

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Instruments

Details

• The songs original title was 'Jesus Don't Cry', but one night the guitarist Jay Bennett lazily wrote Jesus Etc. on a CD and the name stuck.
• Lead singer Jeff Tweedy fired Jay Bennett from the band after the release of 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' in 2001 because Bennett wanted more of a say over the groups overall direction. Bennett couldn't afford hip replacement surgery in May 2009 and subsequently sued Tweedy for unpaid royalties. Later that month, Bennett was found dead at home due to an overdose of fentanyl.
  
  Wilco was Tweedy's band, but during the years around 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot', Bennett was having more of an influence through introducing new instruments to sessions and taking an overall more experimental approach. The relationship between the two musicians was fraught, but the tension resulted in some of Wilco's best albums.
  
  
• 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' seemed doomed from the start. It's original release date was September 11th 2001. Not only did Wilco have to suffer the tensions of Tweedy and Bennett, they were also dropped from their label, when Reprise Records parent company Time Warner merged with AOL that same year. The new organisation decided to shelve the album before they graciously gave Wilco the rights for free.
  
  
• Part of the albums appeal was that it came to prominence after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and features songs that resonated in such a climate.
  
  'Ashes of American Flags' features the line "I would like to salute the ashes of American flags", which references flag burning, which was a popular, contemporary past-time of many in the Arab world after America declared its war on terror.
  
  While it may, at first glance, seem Wilco are unpatriotically celebrating flag burning, it's deeper than that. A core American value is the freedom of expression, and by burning the flag you are exercising that right. While many may find it in poor taste the reality is that in some countries burning the flag is illegal and can result in prison sentences, while in America it's not. The freedom of expression in the USA goes as far as to cover the burning of it's sacred symbols, which is, in a strange way, a celebration of those same core values.
  
  'War on War', from the same album, features the refrain, "it's a war on war", which some liberals used as a battlecry against the war on terror. The phrase "it's a war on war" mocks the idea of declaring against an abstract concept.
  
  
  
  
  
  

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