The song Jeff Tweedy wants played at his funeral
Jeff Tweedy has always been on the fringes of rock stardom throughout his entire career. While Wilco carved out their niche as one of the kings of alternative country music, Tweedy hasn’t reached that level without a fight, having to make some of his biggest songs with the odds already stacked against him. Tweedy has a certain reverence for song crafting, and the track he wants to send him off is typically humble.
When talking through some of the songs that knock him out, Tweedy mentioned a couple of tunes that run the gamut of his musical taste, from Blondie’s sleek new wave sounds to wishing that he wrote ‘You Are My Sunshine’ because of how simple it is. When talking about the song that he wants to be played at his funeral, however, his taste fluctuates towards old-time jazz.
As Tweedy is sent off into the heavens, he would want Duke Ellington’s ‘I’m Beginning to See the Light’ as his ascension music. Coming from the swing era, this is one of Ellington’s more sobering numbers, talking about someone finally finding peace on the other side and becoming a much better soul once he sheds his earthly vessel.
Tweedy has undoubtedly seen that ugly side of humanity as well. Throughout the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, his band was turned inside out in every way the universe knows how, from Tweedy falling out with some of his band members to their label threatening to drop the band should they not give in to demands.
As a form of release, Tweedy would often play I’m Beginning to See the Light’ to his children right before they went to bed, with a sweet tune behind it and lulling them off to sleep. When explaining the song to NME, he did say that the universe won out in the end with that song: “I looked it up and somebody wrote that this is the song that plays in every minor character’s funeral in films and on television. That was the universe really putting me in my place”.
Since then, Tweedy has been on firmer ground, drafting in people like Nels Cline into Wilco and giving the band a mellow vibe in recent years on albums like Sky Blue Sky. Outside of his morbid picks, Tweedy also talked about his vast love of old country music, mentioning not knowing any world without Johnny Cash’s classic ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and seeing acts like The Stray Cats as his first gig when he was little.
Despite being one of the biggest names in alt-country, Tweedy remains humble of his roots, looking to right something as pure as ‘You Are My Sunshine’. When recounting the schoolyard classic, Tweedy marvelled at how singularly perfect it is, remarking, “it just seems like it’s always been there, and we all know it, but none of us know where it’s really from. I think that’s kind of beautiful and eerie”. Wilco’s music has always straddled the line between beautiful and eerie, but when Tweedy is called to meet his maker, the sweet sounds of Duke Ellington will be around to call him back.
