Jeff Tweedy on His New Triple Album, “Twilight Override”

Summary

Podcast Summary: Jeff Tweedy on His New Triple Album, “Twilight Override”

Podcast: The New Yorker Radio Hour
Host(s): David Remnick and Amanda Petrasich
Episode Date: September 9, 2025
Guest: Jeff Tweedy
Main Theme:
A deep, candid conversation with Jeff Tweedy—Wilco’s frontman and solo artist—about his new triple album "Twilight Override." The episode explores Tweedy’s creative process, the concept of musical and personal community, generational legacies, reflections on aging, resistance in an age of conformity, and how songwriting wrestles with fear, hope, and the passage of time.

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Episode Overview

The episode centers on Jeff Tweedy’s ambitious new solo release, "Twilight Override"—a thirty-song, triple-album exploration of memory, persistence, time, and the resilience of both art and human connection. Through intimate conversation and live musical excerpts, Tweedy and host David Remnick (joined by music critic Amanda Petrasich) discuss the intentions behind the album, the realities of creativity in an ever-faster, ever-flatter digital world, and the lessons Tweedy hopes to pass on—to both the musical community and his own family.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Recording Approach: Seeking Authenticity

• Tweedy’s sonic philosophy:
  • A documentary style that values the “fingers on strings, squeaks and buzzes”—sonic imperfections that convey authentic presence.
  • [02:55] “I have always, always gravitated towards the style of recording that's kind of documentary almost... you can hear someone's fingers or you can hear that it's a sound that was actually made in a room... that's the beauty of it.”
• Group singing:
  • Use of group vocals and chorale moments around one mic adds to the sense of intimacy and communal performance.

The Making of a Triple Album

• Creative abundance:
  • The final album is “whittled down from five albums” worth of material, a product of Tweedy’s daily writing practice.
  • [05:41] “It's whittled down from five albums, so this is, in fact, the condensed version of it... I like going to work every day, and I like having a practice of writing.”
• Defiant length in a fast age:
  • Intentional move against shortening norms in media, encouraging listeners to slow down and inhabit a musical world.
  • [05:54] “There was an inspiration to make a triple record, you know, just kind of like... to fly in the face of how short everything is getting and how fast everybody wants everything to be.”

Defiance, Punk Energy, and Community

• Individuated Expression as Resistance:
  • Tweedy links his approach to the rock tradition of “defiance” and upholding the ideal of individual liberty against a backdrop of flattening cultural conformity, particularly via the internet’s “conformity machine.”
  • [06:45] “It's driven by a belief in individuated self expression and that... is a really essential part of rock and roll.”
• Community’s Role:
  • The album as an act of assembling and nurturing community among musicians and listeners alike.
  • [07:46] “That's what this record is also to me, is spending time just basking in a little community, you know, that we've put together for this band that actually feels like it's a part of a bigger community.”

Structure and Thematic Cohesion

• Album Organization:
  • “Twilight Override” is loosely organized across three discs as “past, present, and future.”
  • [18:31] “If time is represented a lot on the record... I tried to organize the record as past, present and future with the three discs.”
• Songs as a Conversation:
  • Each track feels in dialogue with the adjacent tracks, the album’s “vastness” giving space for both individual and collective themes.

Personal Material: Solo vs. Band Work

• Wilco vs. Solo Writing:
  • Tweedy describes more overtly autobiographical and “voice-forward” writing on solo projects compared with Wilco records.
  • [09:32] “I did specifically write a lot of these songs for these voices that I knew I was gonna sing them with and really challenge myself... there’s something a little bit more autobiographical and willing to share it as... just me singing.”

Musical & Emotional Anchors

• Influence of Lou Reed and Velvet Underground:
  • “Lou Reed Was My Babysitter” pays homage to childhood musical influences and notions of artistic freedom.
  • [10:35] “Lou Reed Was My Babysitter is a song on the record... I've been listening to that record almost 50 years, you know, and I'm still sort of captivated by it.”
• Live performance:
  • Tweedy delivers a tender acoustic excerpt of “Who Loves the Sun” (Velvet Underground) [11:32].

Facing Fear, Aging, and Navigating Time

• The meaning behind “Twilight Override”:
  • Tweedy sees “twilight” as a metaphor for phases of life—making peace with endings, transforming dread into acceptance or hope, and passing on generosity to others, reflecting on his role as both artist and mentor.
  • [14:14] “Yeah, the idea of making peace with something ending, you know, overriding the dread...”
• Parenthood and Legacy:
  • Having his sons on the album, and feeling a responsibility to “model behavior... presents an idea of a good strategy for living or coping.” [15:52]
• Override as Technology & Emotion:
  • Notions from programming—“override”—are repurposed to describe using music as a way to override fear, anxiety, and inherited pain.
  • [17:09] “It's like, kind of appropriating [‘override’] and turning it back on the technology itself... I have the ability to override this by singing a song.”

The Psychological Work of Songwriting

• Songwriting and introspection:
  • Tweedy equates writing songs with a form of self-therapy, reliving and working through pivotal, even formative, moments.
  • Example: “Forever Never Ends,” a song revisiting an embarrassing high school prom story, is used to illustrate how the past recurs and how songwriting processes such moments.
  • [21:17] “I just think that we always carry around those... where you realize that you're reacting to a certain situation and it's 100% informed by something that happened to you in the past.”

Perseverance, Joy, and Surrender

• Living with panic disorder:
  • Tweedy shares how creativity (and specifically, singing) can help short-circuit or “override” panic and fear—modeling persistence in the face of anxiety.
  • [25:10] “…feeling like you're never going to be okay. And then you are.”
• Joy as Defiance:
  • Draws inspiration from Mavis Staples’ genuine joy despite adversity: “Dance at him, dance at the bastards... I want to dance right into the light, you know, and instead of seeing the light at the end of your life and thinking... I do want to be like, oh, yeah, here we go.” [25:43]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Authenticity in Recording

  • “You can play the notes correctly, but you almost don't have any control over the squeaks and the buzzes and things like that. And to me, that's the beauty of it.” — Jeff Tweedy [02:55]

• On Defiance and the Internet

  • “It grows out of a music that was formed around the inspiration and genius of probably the least free of our fellow citizens. And I think that's what resonates to me still...” — Jeff Tweedy [06:45]

• On Community and Music

  • “If you're in, you're in, you know, you want to be with us, let's. Let's catch up.” — Jeff Tweedy [07:46]

• On Passing it Forward

  • “Hopefully modeling behavior that is accessible to someone else and also presents an idea of a good strategy for living or coping...” — Jeff Tweedy [15:52]

• On Fear and Singing

  • “Because I can't be scared when I'm singing.” — Jeff Tweedy [17:25]
  • “We borrow a lot of fear from our imaginations.” — Jeff Tweedy [17:45]

• On Perseverance

  • “One of the things that comes with [panic disorder] is feeling like you're never going to be okay. And then you are.” — Jeff Tweedy [25:10]

• On Joy as Rebellion

  • “[Mavis Staples’s] joy... is not put on at all. And it is so rebellious to me. Defiant. Or it's like, dance at him, dance at the bastards. I have a lyric on the... I want to dance right into the light, you know.” — Jeff Tweedy [25:41]

• On Facing the End

  • “Instead of, like, seeing the light at the end of your life and thinking, oh... I do want to be like, oh, yeah, here we go.” — Jeff Tweedy [26:39]
  • “I love that the conga line... Gonna limbo right on into the afterlife.” — David Remnick [26:54]

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Notable Song Excerpts (with Context)

• Twilight Override (title track):
  • Performed live [02:00], [27:07--28:56].
• Crybaby Cry:
  • Discussed for its spontaneous, documentary ambience—background bar sounds from Dublin hotel [03:52].
• Lou Reed Was My Babysitter:
  • Tribute to formative musical influences & artistic freedom [10:35], [12:07].
• Who Loves the Sun (Velvet Underground cover):
  • Acoustic excerpt [11:32].
• Forever Never Ends:
  • Story-song about formative, embarrassing youth moments and their emotional echoes [21:17].

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Thematic Timestamps

• Authentic recording and group vocals:
  [02:55–03:52]
• Making a triple album and resisting fast culture:
  [05:41–06:45]
• Defiance, punk rock, and the internet as “conformity machine”:
  [06:45–07:45]
• Community, Wilco’s role, and fanbase:
  [07:46–08:33]
• Past, present, future album structure & autobiographical writing:
  [09:32–10:35], [18:31]
• Lou Reed/VU influence and tribute:
  [10:35–12:07]
• Album title “Twilight Override” and making peace with change:
  [14:14]
• Parenthood, legacy, and passing it on:
  [15:33–16:48]
• “Override” as emotional and technological act:
  [17:09]
• Aging, time, pandemic’s effect on perception:
  [18:31–20:51]
• Facing fear, therapy, songwriting as self-discovery:
  [21:17–22:22]
• Perseverance, panic disorder, and the influence of Mavis Staples:
  [25:10–26:39]
• Facing life's end with joy, not rage:
  [26:39–26:54]

---

Concluding Sentiment

Jeff Tweedy’s “Twilight Override” is not just a collection of songs but an invitation to slow down, reflect, and connect—with oneself, with others, and with the long, strange arc of lived human experience. His conversation on the episode is marked by warmth, humility, and a stubborn kind of hopefulness—the resolve to create, to support, to persist, and above all, to keep singing, even and especially when fear or time threaten to close in.

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For further reading and listening, Amanda Petrasich’s ongoing music writing appears in The New Yorker, and “Twilight Override” is out now.

Transcript

[Old Fitzgerald Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Old Fitzgerald. Ah, hello. Thanks for tuning in. May I pour you a glass of Old Fitzgerald bottled and Bond seven year old Bourbon? It hits all the right notes, from a whisper of wheat and lingering brown sugar to subtle oak. We call it your key to hospitality because the best things in life are better when shared. The pleasure is ours. Old Fitzgerald, Kentucky Straight bourbon whiskey Bardstown, Kentucky. 50% alcohol by volume. Think wise, drink wisely.

[New Yorker Radio Hour Announcer]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

[Amanda Petrasich]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Amanda Petrasich is a music critic for the New Yorker, and recently she sat down in our studio to talk with and hear some songs from Jeff Tweedy, one of the great songwriters working today.

[David Remnick]

Jeff Tweedy is probably best known as the lead singer of Wilco, the band he formed in Chicago in 1994 as pioneers in the alt country wave. In recent years, he's been working more often as a solo artist, putting out both books and records under his own name. This month he's releasing Twilight Override, a triple album and a gorgeous, thoughtful meditation on time, aging, fear and persistence. We're currently living through a moment in which cross pollination between genres is incredibly commonplace. But for me, when I first heard Wilco, I was floored by the ways in which Tweedy combined a kind of punk scrappiness with that lonesome, yearning country sound. It spoke to the parts of me that were angry, the parts of me that were sad, and the parts of me that were ecstatic just to be alive doing all the dumb, goofy, transcendent things humans do. His work still feels that way to me, as though it contains everything.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Someone's cell phone comes sailing down the bones of the books we never found the lights on the ridge Winding around Shadows in their shadows Drugs on drug crawling on the ground Love is for love.

[David Remnick]

I want to just start by saying that I really, really love these songs. I find them incredibly tender and searching and close and I think sort of inherent to the way they were recorded. And I'm curious if that quality, that closeness, was something you were purposefully working toward in the studio or sort of how you got that sound on this.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I have always, always gravitated towards the style of recording that's kind of documentary almost. I want there to be elements where you feel like you can hear someone's fingers or you can hear that it's a sound that was actually made in a room. All the things that I think are gonna get harder and harder to fake I don't know, the kind of. Like, when you play guitar, you don't really. You can play the notes correctly, but you almost don't have any control over the squeaks and the buzzes and things like that. And to me, that's the beauty of it. It's like it's not gonna be exactly the same every time. And I don't know, I love it. Same with the voices I want, you know, they're not affected in a lot of ways. And there's a lot of group singing around one microphone and a lot of chorals singing on the record, which was important to me, too.

[David Remnick]

The opening of Crybaby Cry almost sounds like it was recorded in the back room of a bar. What is that? It sounds like a party.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Cry baby cry Stare deep in the.

[Old Fitzgerald Announcer]

Night.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

I know you try but you never get it right so cry make me cry.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

It was recorded in my hotel room in Dublin, across the. The river from the bars, getting out in downtown Dublin. And so those people were all the way, like, at least a block away that you can hear. It was a nice night. So I had the windows open. I. Honestly, to begin with, we did both. We. We overdubbed on the one I recorded in my hotel room, and then we recorded a whole new one in the studio. And I kind of liked them both. And then we stumbled upon that transition that feels really satisfying to me, where all of the ambience kind of goes away and you're in a different room at a different time, you know?

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Well, that'll always be how I see you Walking like you got a rock.

[David Remnick]

In your shoe It's a triple album. 30 songs. I'm curious, kind of how that came to be, and are you always writing this much material?

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

It's whittled down from five albums, so this is, in fact, the condensed version of it. I like going to work every day, and I like having a practice of writing, and that tends to, you know, provide a lot of material. There was an inspiration to make a triple record, you know, just kind of like. Just to fly in the face of how short everything is getting and how fast everybody wants everything to be. You don't have to listen to it, you know, in one sitting. I think the songs hopefully stand on their own. But I do like the idea of giving some. Someone almost two hours to kind of be pulled along by an outpouring of.

[David Remnick]

Songs, you know, it feels almost like there's like a little bit of a punk rock, you know, a thread of defiance through this, which is it is almost a sort of resistance to modern life or kind of the way we consume culture now.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

You know, it's driven by a belief in individuated self expression and that. That's a really essential part of rock and roll. It's an essential part of art in my opinion. It's a continuation of an art form to me, that is defiant. It grows out of a music that was formed around the inspiration and genius of probably the least free of our fellow citizens. And I think that's what resonates to me still, is that it's like the best expression of what the dream of America, an American ideal would be. The individualism, the liberty to be yourself, to think freely, know it's not just America. The world pushes against that, I think, you know, but when you think about how the Internet works, it really is like a conformity machine. It's like really efficient.

[David Remnick]

It flattens everything.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Yeah, I see the value in it and I see the value in people finding each other and how lonely it can be. But I don't think it supplants real community in a way that is beneficial to people. And I think that we should get better at forming communities. And that's what this record is also to me, is spending time just basking in a little community, you know, that we've put together for this band that actually feels like it's a part of a bigger community in the Wilco fan base and my fan base and you know, that's another like a reason it's triple record in a lot of ways. It's like, oh, if you're in, you're in, you know, you want to be with us, let's. Let's catch up.

[David Remnick]

Yeah, and the size too feels significant, but necessary. Like as you were saying, the sort of vastness of it feels like an essential part of how it works. Each track kind of feels like it's in conversation with what happens before and what happens after. Does that, I mean, does it feel that way for you too? Like if you took one song off?

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I made single records that feel longer to me. And I'm not saying I'm not proud of those records. I just think that I've made records that have an intensity to them, that it kind of wears you out a little bit.

[David Remnick]

Which ones are you thinking of?

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I mean, to me, even Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has an intensity to it that feels sort of all at once when you listen through it. It can be laborious if you're not in the mood for the Whole. I don't know. To just be in that world for that long. This one doesn't feel long to me at all.

[David Remnick]

I did want to ask you a little bit when you're writing, how soon in the process you sort of know whether this will be a solo song, a song that could be on a.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Wilco record in general. Anything I write can kind of end up anywhere. I did specifically write a lot of these songs for these voices that I knew I was gonna sing them with and really challenge myself to sing songs that had longer held notes. It's not something I'd gravitate towards, so. And I think there's a subject matter that comes easier to me in thinking about it in the context of a solo record than in the identity of a ban. You know, I don't think that I've shied away from having personal topics on Wilco records and things that I relate to deeply. But there's something a little bit more autobiographical and willing to share it as. Not as a character. But, you know, this is just me singing.

[David Remnick]

Are there particular songs or artists or albums that you think, well, this is a panacea for me. This works whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed or freaked out.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Well, yeah.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter is a song on the record. And it's because I had loaded when I was 9 years old or something. It was part of the record collection I inherited from my brother. And I've been listening to that record almost 50 years, you know, and I'm still sort of captivated by it. When I was growing up especially, it wasn't revered as, like, an important Velvet Underground record. The fact that Doug U. Sings a bunch of songs that, you know, took me years to figure out it's not Lou Reed.

[David Remnick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Me too, actually.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Yeah.

[David Remnick]

Can I ask you to play a little bit of a Velvet Underground song?

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Who loves the sun who cares that it makes showers? Who cares what it's done since you broke my heart?

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I think, oh, my God.

[David Remnick]

So beautiful.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

That's such a cool song.

[David Remnick]

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter is also one of my favorite songs on this record. But on that song, you're really channeling Lou, and not just sort of in your phrasing and delivery, but I think, as you were saying in that song's kind of freedom and attitude.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

I want to sweat next to you Sweat next to you with the sticky carpet Sucking on my shoes.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Rock and roll ain't never gonna lose Nu. I want you to dance into me.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Spill my drink I want to Feel the kick kicking in my teeth, My bleeding heart bleeding to the beat.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Look out.

[Amanda Petrasich]

Jeff Tweedy talking with Amanda Petrasich of the New Yorker. More in a moment.

[Old Fitzgerald Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Old Fitzgerald. Ah, hello. Thanks for tuning in. May I pour you a glass of Old Fitzgerald bottled and Bond seven year old Bourbon? It hits all the right notes from a whisper of wheat and lingering brown sugar to subtle oak. We call it your key to hospitality because the best things in life are better when shared. The pleasure is ours. Old Fitzgerald. Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Bardstown, Kentucky 50% alcohol by volume. Think wisely, drink wisely.

[David Remnick]

America is changing and so is the world.

[Old Fitzgerald Announcer]

But what's happening in America isn't just.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

The cause of global upheaval.

[Old Fitzgerald Announcer]

It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[David Remnick]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Old Fitzgerald Announcer]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

[David Remnick]

Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. I really love the album title and you wrote a little in the album release notes about the word twilight, which I agree is a beautiful word and a sort of melancholic idea too. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about that. You know, twilight override. What does that mean to you?

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Yeah, the idea of making peace with something ending, you know, overriding the dread of, you know, if we're like looking at the word override, what am I overriding? It's not just, I mean, twilight's beautiful, so you're not really needing to override that, but you need to override your fear of it. And, you know, also remind yourself that Twilight, if you don't, if you wake up and you don't know what time of day it is, it could be sunrise, you know, and, you know, I'm 58 years old. I would say that that could conceivably be thought of as a twilight. I love that I have something to share with my kids. I love that I have something to share with my kids. Friends and bands I meet in younger bands, I love getting to be hopefully something to them that I wish some of the bands I really admired had been. For me, you know, that's like kind of a guiding principle is like, what, what didn't happen that I wish had happened? When I opened up for somebody, I was like, well, one thing for sure it's really easy to do is go say hi. A lot of people didn't you know, a lot of. And it was like, I understand. It was just, you know, you're busy. You have to make a conscious effort to do it.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah.

[David Remnick]

Your sons are both on this record. That idea of kind of passing it towards, I don't know, taking a minute to say, like, hey, thanks for being here. You know, this is sort of what I know about this. Do you feel like being a parent sort of gave you that instinct or helped you hone that instinct of, like, I'm gonna show you maybe how this works and try to make it easier for you?

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Well, I don't know. I feel like I would. I still probably turn my kids onto more bands than they turn me on to because I listen to a lot of music, like everybody assumes. Oh, your kids are, like, telling you about the, like. Nah, it's pretty. Pretty back and forth these days. And just maybe my comfort level around people their age, you know, is enhanced by my fatherhood. But I think it's more really rooted in a sense of gratitude that I've been able to do this thing that I love and I get to do for so long. I think there's a part of me that wants to feel like I deserve it. And when you. Hopefully modeling. A Modeling behavior that is accessible to someone else and also presents an idea of a good strategy for living or coping, you know?

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah.

[David Remnick]

I mean, that reminds me of the word override, too, because in a sense, you're sort of trying to, you know, not right the wrongs of the past or the people who were, you know, maybe less friendly than they should have been to you.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

But.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Yeah, override's a word that we use. And I mean, I'm sorry to get back that, but like, we use in computer programming, like, we're probably more aware of that word from that world.

[David Remnick]

Yeah, certainly.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

And so I wanted. It's like, kind of appropriating it and turning it back on the technology itself or something, you know, Like, I want to override this. I have the ability to override this by singing a song.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Because I can't be scared when I'm singing.

[David Remnick]

So that's true for you, that you can't sing and be afraid at the same time?

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I think so, yeah.

[David Remnick]

That's amazing.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I mean, have you ever tried it?

[David Remnick]

You don't want to hear me sing, Jeff. But no, but I know what you mean, actually, because you're right.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

A lot of people would say the same thing about laughing.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

But I do think that's true because it grounds you in the Present. It grounds you in the moment. You know, we borrow a lot of fear from our imaginations.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

So overriding that and trying to use my imagination to, you know, again, reject that and hopefully make something that I can keep singing.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yes.

[David Remnick]

We talked a little bit about. Or you spoke a little bit about aging. I mean, you're still pretty young, 58, but it seems like it's all over the album. Sort of the idea of time and change and, I don't know, you know, the question of, like, well, do we lean into that or do we resist that? I mean, is aging something you've just started thinking about more recently?

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

My wife has been through a lot of health issues for the past 16 years or so. It may be, actually, since I met her, like, multiple cancer scares and treatments and things like that. So I associate that with aging, even though that's not necessarily. She was pretty young when the first cancer was diagnosed and surgically removed. The biggest concern with aging to me is, like, obviously, your body, having your body stay in service of your desires, just being more aware of our body's fallibility. Something like that. If time is represented a lot on the record, which I think it is in some ways, I think I tried to organize the record as past, present and future with the three discs. And, you know, it's certainly on my mind, but I kind of don't know anybody that isn't, like, kind of obsessed with time.

[David Remnick]

Of course.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

It pushes in on all of us.

[David Remnick]

Yeah. And that idea of sort of hovering, you know, I don't know. You look at the rest of your life and you think, all right, I've got a third act coming. You know, what do I want that to look like? That idea of imagining a future, which is an inherently sort of hopeful thing.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Right.

[David Remnick]

To think about how you want to spend the rest of your time.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Right.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Different time feels post pandemic.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yes.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Or like that shock to the system seems to have really reset our relationship with time.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah. Yes, I agree.

[David Remnick]

I feel like we don't talk about that enough. There is this sort of strange, kind of foggy collective, like, everybody is denial, in my opinion.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Everybody is walking around traumatized, like. Like, without talking. Yeah. Literally without talking about it. But it's like, to me, it's just a matter of fact and with varying degrees of severity. The loneliness wasn't particularly bad for my family because we were all in one house during the pandemic. But, you know, there were people that had their entire worlds turned upside down for a long stretch without any real hope in Sight for quite some time.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah.

[David Remnick]

I mean, and that was another thing that I think also made us consider, like, the system, like our bodily systems, you know, and the sort of ways in which they can falter. One of my favorite songs starts out describing a prom night disaster. You're a kid in a tuxedo. You're throwing up on the side of the road. It's very awful, very hilarious. But then you sing the chorus. Forever never ends. I'm always back there Again and again and again. In what ways are you still living that experience?

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I mean, always. I just think that we always carry around those. Don't you? I don't mean to turn questions back on the interviewer, but don't you have that, like, where you realize that you're reacting to a certain situation and it's 100% informed by something that happened to you in the past?

[David Remnick]

Of course.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

And that you don't even put it together in the moment, but that you realize, oh, I'm not actually upset with the person that I'm talking to. I'm upset with my. My math teacher.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Right. Yes.

[David Remnick]

Yes. This is the great pleasure, perhaps, or sort of revelatory nature of therapy, I think, when maybe you sort of get led back towards, like, maybe it's actually this thing.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Right.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

But I think songwriting is a form of that in a way. And certainly if you have a process that is more oriented towards self discovery, there's something liberating about naming it as, like, I experienced a moment of forever on the side of the road.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

A hissing road flare. Baby's breath in her hair in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a nightmare. I had to call my dad. I knew he'd be mad. I've never seen him not mad. Vomiting, the frozen grass. Peppermint schnapps. Well, here come the cops.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

You know, work. It was. It got really, really dark. And it's humorous in a way.

[David Remnick]

Of course.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yes.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

And. And as a kid, I probably just assumed that things were going to work out.

[David Remnick]

Yeah.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

But that's, you know, as close to despairing as you can be and hopeless.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Again and again Forever never ends. I'm always back there.

[David Remnick]

I remember PJ Harvey saying something to me about, you know, how much work the instrumentation does and the melody does in terms of sort of providing more context for a story or more meaning for a story. And when that disappears and all you have is language, it's a very different challenge, for sure.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Words on the page. That's why rock lyrics generally, even by the people that we revere as great poets tend to not look like great poetry on the page. Which is kind of interesting because some of the first things that we probably have to read were maybe written down with a melody in mind.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I think. And it's because they are so helpful in memorizing something long. Attaching it to a melody, attaching it to a meter. Made it so much easier to have a story be transmitted across time reliably.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yeah. Yes.

[David Remnick]

And that's a powerful. I mean, that's a powerful force, too, you know, on this record, for me. There's a really palpable thread of just keep going, you know, and maybe that's what you were talking about of sort of the structure of past, present and future in this sense that life is long and hard and incredible and surprising. And, man, you just gotta see what happens next, you know? Don't stop. I'm curious if that feels true to you, that sort of subtext of the record. And if.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Amanda Petrasich or another host)]

Yes.

[David Remnick]

Sort of how you got there. How you got to a place where you thought, like, just one foot in front of the other.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I don't know if I got there. It's just like a. Just a surrender to it just being the facts, you know, I have panic disorder. And one of the things that comes with that is feeling like you're never going to be okay. And then you are. I've seen people facing circumstances much more harrowing than I'll probably ever face in my life with a lot more resolve and fearlessness. I've been fortunate enough to work with Mavis Staples a lot in my life and, like, several records. And she lives in Chicago. And I always think about her history, the history of the movements she was a part of, her family history and her joy that is not put on at all. And it is so rebellious to me. Defiant. Or it's like, dance at him, dance at the bastards. I have a lyric on the. I was like. Not to quote. That's what we're here for. Yes, that's what we're here for. I want to dance right into the light, you know, and, like, instead of, like, seeing the light at the end of your life and thinking, oh, like, I do want to be like, oh, yeah, here we go. Let's.

[David Remnick]

I love that.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I'm ready.

[David Remnick]

That's almost a response to that Dylan Thomas line. Right? It's. I think it's Dylan Thomas. The rage, rage against the dying of the light. To instead. Yeah. Dance right in.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

It's this way, guys. I love that the conga line Gonna.

[David Remnick]

Limbo right on into the afterlife. Jeff, I can't thank you enough for this conversation today and that music.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me.

[David Remnick]

Such a pleasure.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

It's an honor to be here. Thank you.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Scratching at the dead golden lawn A leaning doe and a shaking fawn.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

I.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

Called for you then they were gone A planet without moons A clock with no news Too late too soon Love is for love I'm counting on the spitting type to follow through all the night the kind of dark that shocks and bites when the light goes on strike I can't make it to the mic Love is love and like is like so let's celebrate for another year Hunt and kill another hollow fear.

[David Remnick]

Ache.

[Jeff Tweedy (singing)]

For someone already here Catching I don't care in the humming summer air Love is for love and I'm not going anywhere.

[Amanda Petrasich]

Jeff Tweedy's Twilight Override comes out this month and you can read Amanda Petrasich on music and you can subscribe to the New Yorker in that very same place. New Yorker.com. that's the new Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed the show. See you next time.

[New Yorker Radio Hour Announcer]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul and Ursula Sommer. With guidance from Emily Bottin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan and Alejandra Deckett.

[Jeff Tweedy (speaking)]

We had additional help this week from Pran Band.

[New Yorker Radio Hour Announcer]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Trina Endowment Fund.

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