About two weeks ago, I stumbled across a musical Shangri-La: the much-discussed, little-heard Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Demos. There's some tremendous stuff here; about half the tracks are as good or better than songs from the finished Wilco album (which is saying something, since YHF is still the best album released since the century turned). This week's Thursday MPThree is my favorite Demos track, "Venus Stop The Train," one of the saddest songs Jeff Tweedy has ever penned.
In his sparkling PopMatters essay on the Demos -- which you simply must read, even if you are operating heavy machinery -- Chuck Hicks decribes the sorrowful attraction of "Venus":
By far the most devastating song on the Demos is "Venus Stopped the Train", a track surely destined for most acclaimed in Wilco's unpublished portfolio. It appears to be the tale of a runaway (or homeless) girl, perhaps a prostitute. But apart from the revelation that her father "reached out to her / when her mother slept", we aren't fed lurid details. Instead, Tweedy and Jay Bennett (who shared credits for this song) express her anxieties in abstractions that are vastly more chilling:
Satellites were spinning
In outer space
They televised her feelings
While the light
The light struck terror
A creaky, pedal-laden piano adds to the solemnity of this sympathetic portrait of this ultimate symbol of infidelity. After stating "I kept my distance" Tweedy sings, "I'm polite to her / I reached my soft hand out to her..." and you can feel the empathy as well as the irony in his voice.
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Speaking of Wilco, many of my friends have talked about going to one of the band's Southern shows -- Nashville, Atlanta, Asheville -- or even hitting all three. But I haven't seen much initiative on this crucial matter. So, let's just make my blog the central headquarters for Chattanooga's Wilco-Following Fest '04. Who wants to go to these shows? Which shows do you want to hit? Has anyone bought tickets yet?
Posted by mesh at August 19, 2004 01:42 PM | TrackBackI'm there amigo. Which venue is the better one?
Posted by: JosiahQ at August 19, 2004 02:39 PMMight I recommend the Fabulous Fox Theatre in ATL. We'll be there and it would be great to hook up with the Chattanooga crowd.
Posted by: benny at August 20, 2004 09:44 AMAs far as shows to attend, I hope to attend all three. But if I had to choose I would go to Atl, because Nashville is an outside show and I hate outside shows, and Asheville is far, far away.
and as for the wilco demos, mesh, I am holding my draft of the first two scenes of our movie ransom until you burn me a copy.
just to note the song "venus stop the train" was written by the ousted keyboardist Jay Bennett & Ed Burch.
Posted by: Neil at February 21, 2005 03:45 PM