Via Chicago by Wilco

Via Chicago is a track on the Summerteeth album, released in 1999. 

This was the first Wilco album I ever heard and I was really interested in the variety of the material, the different shades, the range of styles, from country to power pop to something a wee bit avant garde. What really hit home were Jeff Tweedy's lyrics and Via Chicago's is the most stunning of all.

The track is essentially an simple acoustic track with quite sombre and muted electronic sounds grafted onto it.  It is ordinary until the singing starts:  Over strummed guitar chords, bass and snare Tweedy sings:

I dreamed about killing you again last night
And it felt alright to me
Dying on the banks of Embarcadero skies
I sat and watched you bleed
Buried you alive in a fireworks dispaly
Raining down on me
Your cold, hot blood ran away from me
To the sea.

There is tension, mystery, fear.  The narrative is both surreal and routine, delivered in a downbeat drawl.  As the song progresses it is fleshed out with synthesizer tones and whistles and arhythmic drumming.  But the whole performance is restrained, reined in, maybe a bit polite.

The last lines of the verse before the final chorus summarise this feeling:

Rest my head on a pilllowy strat
and a cracked door moon
Says I haven't gone too far.

The version of the song on the Kicking Televison album, recorded live in May 2005 showcases the changes in approach.  Via Chicago starts as a country ballad, with pedal steel touches by Nels Cline, before diving into a white-noise-wig-out led by Glenn Kotche's clashing drum solo in the middle of the later verses.  It is a music of contrasts; the band turns on a dime, loud / silent, plain / complex, soft / hard, supportibve / destructive.  In live shows these contrasts are emphasised by volume and the band's often brutal light shows, as witnessed in the Ashes of American Flags DVD in 2009.

Sunmerteeth seems to me to be the start of the end of the initial stage in the band's development.  By Yankee Hotel Foxtrot the band would change totally, becoming Jeff Tweedy's vehicle in essence and actuality.  The film, I am trying to break your heart by Sam Jones shows the shift graphically as drummer Ken Coomer is immediately absent and multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennet is shown the door.  The current band revolves around Jeff Tweedy with John Stirratt on bass the sole survivor of the original band, supported by great players - Glenn Kotche, Mikael Jorgensen, Pat Sansone and Nels Cline.

There is no definite version of Via Chicago - it is changing and adapting through time, in every performance. The initial idea is still at the centre of the song but it is evolving, growing different limbs, experiencing different moods, expanding to fill a space in a concert hall, contracting to spread through my headphones.  Whatever it is,  when you hear it you will know it.