Wilco

Mermaid Avenue

The Present Marries the Past, Hope for the Future!

Review Score:

(10/10)
For those of us who were young and passionate about social issues in the 50's, 60's or 70's, this fantastic album lets us know that the concerns of activists of the 20th century are alive and well in the 21st century.

My own 20-something son turned me on to the music of Wilco, playing it during our Sunday dinners. "Is that...who are you listening to?" He smiled smugly as I tried to figure out who this was.

Dylan-like lyrics sung with by a Dylan-who-could-sing? Springsteen? Arlo Guthrie? Or someone entirely different? He grinned as he shared with me his favorite group (Wilco) and their best ever album.

I've listened to other Wilco albums - this one is absolutely the best to me - perhaps I'm more of a Bragg fan than I'd ever have known, or maybe its just the bleeding heart liberal still kicking within me. The messages are clear, the music consistently good. On his other albums, some songs take a bit of getting used to - the present mixes with the past in ways that are sometimes refreshing, uplifting, promising - sometimes grating (even my son says so, but he doesn't care!)

But this album rocks, in a folk music with message kind of way. This is because, of course, the lyrics are Woody Guthrie's, scribblings written on scraps of paper, about times that evidently haven't changed. Guthrie's daughter Nora gave permission for the words to be turned into song - British songwriter/musician Billie Bragg explains this in the amazon interview shown in the sidebar to your left.

"Every year we waste enough to feed the ones who starve," Tweedy shouts in Guthrie's "Christ for President," maybe the greatest campaign song ever written. In the remarkable "Unwelcome Guest," via Guthrie's words, Bragg adopts the persona of a rider on his way to rob a rich man who has earned his wealth by "stealing and lying and gambling," and he ends with this steely-eyed prediction:

"They'll take the money and spread it out equal / Just like the Bible and prophets suggest / But the men who go riding to help these poor workers / The rich will cut down like an unwelcome guest.'

"Has there ever been a vision of social justice so moral, or so clear about its price?" (read the whole article, its good!)

I liked this album because the music is wonderful to hear, the lyrics have thought and meaning still - a wedding of what was then, with what is still now, the album takes something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue - and turns it into a timely, cross-generational piece of art.

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