It doesn’t happen to me often, but this week, when a former and dear work colleague died, I had no words.
I read the tributes that flooded in. Warren was sweet, funny, kind, eternally optimistic, quietly determined and loyal. A music man to the end. Every word rang true. But I couldn’t find my own to add.
It feels so wrong. He seemed too young to be forever gone. He had so much more to do.
But here’s the thing. Death doesn’t make sense. And cancer doesn’t care about your plans.
Warren and I shared a musical history that stretched back to the 80s. So it felt right that the week he died, as I struggled to make sense of it all, my favourite band, one I have loved for decades, put out a new album.
I’ve seen Wilco play in beer barns and theatres and sat just metres from Jeff Tweedy when he played solo at the Meeniyan Town Hall. I played Wilco at my wedding, and again, less than three years later, at my husband’s memorial.
Perfectly timed to carry me through, Wilco released “Cruel Country”, where, according to the pre-release promotion, they head back to their country roots.
I don’t know if it’s country, but it’s gentle and organic and sometimes if you lean into the speakers, I swear you can hear the band members breathing and smiling at each other.
Recorded almost entirely live, in this age of Spotify playlists, it feels redundant to describe it as a double album, but I’m an old-fashioned girl and it sits okay with me. Twenty-one tracks that wash over you and weave their quiet magic. It’s a place to escape into and like all great music, takes you somewhere else. And this week, I needed to be somewhere else, if just for a moment.
The songs are simple and direct, the tempo laid-back and hushed, like an old friend, whispering comfort in your ear. It’s a long album and has taken me a while to get a grip on it, but fragments of lyrics fall out, and draw me in.
My heart’s hard to find sometime.
I can feel you in my chest.
It takes a lifetime to find a life like the life you had in mind.
Between happy and sad and true, between good and bad there’s always you.
When I look at the sky, I know I’m not the only one alive.
Halfway through, on a track called Many Worlds, Jeff Tweedy sings about worlds colliding.
I don’t know what the measure of success is. But if at the end, you leave behind people who love you, who say their world is better and richer for having collided with yours, that sounds like a good life.
Thinking about all Warren did, and the family he created, I know he lived well. That he quietly achieved so much and helped so many.
He lived a good life. I’m glad we collided.
Wilco: Falling Apart (right Now).
