This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Wilco Happens. At one point, that was the working title for this fifth album from these Chicago post-roots rockers. And no wonder — the past few years have certainly been an eventful time for singer-guitarist Jeff Tweedy and his bandmates.
The fun started with their 2002 disc Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, a complex and challenging work which took a toll on both their personal and professional lives. Famously rejected by their label, it went on to become their most successful and acclaimed disc after Wilco bought it back and released it elsewhere. Along the way, however, the band parted ways with longtime member Jay Bennett and Tweedy struggled with his newfound fame, eventually acquiring a prescription-drug dependency that landed him in rehab and delayed this disc’s release.
Not surprisingly, all that instability and uncertainty factor heavily into A Ghost Is Born. Lyrically, the clearly vulnerable Tweedy spends most of these dozen moody and introverted tracks rudderless and powerless, searching for the rock of identity in a world beyond his control. “I’m an ocean / An abyss in motion,” he confesses on one cut. “I’m a wheel / I will turn on you,” he claims on another. At other times, he’s a hummingbird, a clown or even “a cherry ghost.” Eventually, he decides it’s all out of his hands anyway, and the only way to gain any control is by choosing to relinquish it: “Exactly what do you want me to be?” he pleads. “It’s OK for you to say … I just do as I am told.”
But it’s clear no one is telling Tweedy the musician what to do. Although A Ghost Is Born’s open-ended, loosely structured songs carry on in the same evolutionary spirit of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, these Jim O’Rourke-produced tracks are not haunted by its difficult sonic spectre. The bleeping alienation and glitchy cobwebs have been all but swept away this time, in favour of spare, sluggish grooves and poignant, ringing ballads. Piano is the predominant instrument on most of these numbers, with Tweedy using his guitar more for punctuation or effect, punching in with a searing cathartic solo and then retreating to the background.
Only a couple of tunes — the scrappy, T.Rex-tinged I’m A Wheel and The Late Greats — could be termed rockers. But only Less Than You Think — a three-minute dirge about death and afterlife that leads into 12 minutes of ominous amplifier hum and ambient feedback manipulations — could be termed too artsy for its own good.
Overall, A Ghost Is Born is difficult yet accessible, cerebral yet emotional, spiritual yet grounded — the sort of disc that’s well worth the investment of time it takes to fully comprehend and appreciate its subtleties. And while it may not be as much of a milestone for the band as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, it is a great record nonetheless. I Wilco you not.
