Video: Jeff Tweedy – “I Know What It’s Like”
Directed by Mark Greenberg. From WARM, out now on dBpm Records.
I’m about 100 pages into Tweedy’s memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), and so far it’s really enjoyable. One of my favorite things about it so far is the antipathy he retains toward his classmates from high school. We all know we’re supposed to let that shit go by the time we’re grown up, but it’s comforting to know there are other people out there who continue to feel “alienated and irrationally repulsed by most of my classmates.”
When he bumped into a woman from his high school who told him she was sad he wouldn’t be attending their twentieth reunion, he writes, “I needed to catch up with her like I needed to sit down with Madonna and reminisce about all the times I watched the ‘Lucky Star’ video on MTV as a teen.”
I know what that’s like.
I wish Tweedy would put more of this kind of conversational humor into his lyrics. His songs used to be funnier…at least occasionally. I love sad sack dad rock as much as anybody (it’s my jam), but I appreciate getting a chance to smirk or even guffaw once in a while to moderate the tears in my beers. But it’s okay. Something else is taking shape, I guess.