Mary and Meredith continue their track-by-track run down of the Wilco album Ode to Joy with "Love is Everywhere (Beware)." Things kick off with a migraine tangent, then the friends delve happily into the foreboding imagery and uplifting instrumentation of this song.
(Theme music fades in: guitar strumming, slide guitar glides in. Music fades out as the co-hosts Mary MacLane Mellas and Meredith Hobbs Coons begin to speak.)
Meredith: Why, hello.
Mary: Hello, Meredith!
Meredith: Hi, Mary.
Mary: Welcome...
Meredith: Yes. Welcome (laughs) to-
Mary: -Wilco Will... Love You.
Meredith: Wilco Will Love You is a podcast by fans... about the music, and influence of Wilco.
Mary: That it is.
Meredith: It is.
Mary: And today, we are talking about "Love is Everywhere." It's so good. I really... love this song.
Meredith: It opens like a lil' hug, for my sensibilities anyway.
Mary: Yeah!
Meredith: It's just- like, the sound of the guitar, and then-
Mary: We literally both, when the guitar came in, went, "Agh!" It's just so good.
Meredith: The lead and the drums come in, kind of, together. Or like, almost together.
Mary: Maybe we should listen to it?
Meredith: We'll figure it out.
Mary: We're gonna take a pause and listen
Meredith: We'll check our work (laughs)-
Mary: -check our work, and then we'll get back to you.
(Music fades in. Jeff Tweedy sings, "It's all yours now/ It's all for you/ Right now right now love is everywhere/ Right now right now love is everywhere." A beautiful, bright guitar solo plays as the clip fades.)
Mary: All right.
Meredith: That was excellent. I think it'll be fine- and I'll be fine (laughs)- but... it feels fitting to... mention it- during the first pass, because we do a couple passes with the songs-
Mary: -yeah-
Meredith: -and... I felt a little... migraine-y twitch in my neck-
Mary: -oh, no-
Meredith: -for like a hot second. And it hasn't really come back, but I think it's enough to kind of... mess with my brain capacity a little bit? Like, either to distract me or... sometimes when I get migraines, it messes with, like, my word finding ability and stuff like that a little bit. I think I'll be okay. But I just wanted to (laughs) mention that to say that my migraines have gotten better. I started taking one of those shots- there are like a few different varieties that you can get.
Mary: Oh yeah.
Meredith: And they don't lay me out for a whole day, and make me vomit and... just, sleep. And they're not nearly as intense as they... used to be?
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: And... I found that worth mentioning just because I know that Jeff Tweedy suffers much in the same way that I do from the way he described it in his book, which I actually read when I was lying in bed recovering from a migraine.
Mary: Wow.
Meredith: (Laughs) and so it felt good to kind of have that-
Mary: -yeah-
Meredith: -um, validation for the experience that I've had since I was five. But they've gotten a lot better, especially with the... shot.
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: And I'll say they've also kind of morphed in a weird way-
Mary: -hmm-
Meredith: -where I will have it happen where I'm talking... to people, and I feel like... when it starts to kind of kick in, it'll almost be like I'm having a dream... layered over- the-
Mary: -oh, wow-
Meredith: -my lived experience in that moment. Like I'm simultaneously dreaming which is weird.
Mary: Wow
Meredith: Not sure if that's super normal. But anyway. I just thought that I would share all of that in the interest of saying that if you get terrible migraines (laughs), if you, too, read Jeff Tweedy talking about his experience and think, "Man, he really gets it, because I have really suffered in the same way," then that might be something to... explore.
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: I'm in no way like a big old pharma person. And I'm a little nervous about it in general. It has helped me to be... completely laid out and flattened by migraines much less than I was.
Mary: Having life function.
Meredith: Yeah. A little bit of brain function.
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: Anyway, I thought that was worth saying.
Mary: We're here to talk about Wilco and beyond.
Meredith: Yeah, that's right.
Mary: So "Love is Everywhere (Beware)."
Meredith: Mhmm.
Mary: Do you feel like... giving us some thoughts on that?
Meredith: I actually don't have a whole lot to say about the lyrics. Do you?
Mary: I actually don't either! I was (laughs) actually going to ask if you had something to say about the lyrics, because... they kind of stumped me a little bit. But I think the message comes across.
Meredith: Yeah. That lead guitar is the "love," I decided,
Mary: Oh! That lead guitar line...
Meredith: It's playing the character of Love in this song.
Mary: Oh my gosh. I love that lead guitar line. It's also, like, extremely difficult to play, like-
Meredith: -yeah-
Mary: -to play that fast-
Meredith: -mhmm-
Mary: -even though it's not, like, a technically difficult note-wise... riff to play, I just am always really impressed by Nels Cline's ability to play really syncopated parts.
Meredith: Mhmm.
Mary: And they always land perfectly. Like, I'm thinking of "Side with the Seeds..." when they have that instrumental, like, guitar line... and it's very... rhythmically challenging. There's something about this guitar line that's just, like, so happy! It's, like, just what the song needs.
Meredith: Mhmm.
Mary: It makes the song. But also to do with guitars, I gotta say... I also really like Tweedy's acoustic progression, because it's a really Tweedy progression. The chord progression is so Tweedy, and even the rhythm... this song for me, like, reminds me why I love Wilco so much, I feel like.
Meredith: Aw.
Mary: Yeah, I might not have a lot to say about, like, the lyrics or the content, but it's something about the feeling of this song is just like- it just makes me really happy.
Meredith: Yeah, same. And for me that it starts out with just that immediate... acoustic guitar, just kind of raw like that. Acoustic guitar is such a comforting... sound to me. And- probably going back to my childhood, and just listening to my dad play.
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: It just really... makes me feel like I'm at home. And so hearing it kind of isolated, just at first like that- other instruments come in really quickly, but it also... builds in a way that's satisfying.
Mary: Exactly. The way the bass comes in...
Meredith: Yes.
Mary: Love it. I know, we talked a lot about the drums on this record.
Meredith: (Laughs).
Mary: This song has very under-the-radar drums, which is usually how I like drums. Like, I like drums to be there, but I don't really want to particularly notice them.
Meredith: Mhmm.
Mary: But this song has this great groove and the drums... are just what they need to be. And really, I think that on this record, the drums really are what they need to be on everything.
Meredith: Yeah. They really are.
Mary: They might be more percussive on some songs, but on this song, it's kind of like how we were talking about, um, "Everyone Hides," it's just like a classic-
Meredith: -yeah-
Mary: -good song.
Meredith: Yeah.
Mary: There's nothing really that crazy about it.
Meredith: Yeah.
Mary: But it's Wilco. It's creative. And this song... is the same way. It's gonna be a classic forever. I mean, that's really what I had to say about this song.
Meredith: (Laughs) yeah. I was thinking- like "Citizens," there's kind of a rocking motion to this song.
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: Do you notice?
Mary: Yeah, yeah.
Meredith: But it's kind of more soothing.
Mary: I am a bit curious, because the title is very intriguing. And you hear "love is everywhere, love is everywhere," a lot throughout the song. But then at the very end, he kind of talks about this anxiety... about (reads lyrics) "I'm frightened how/ Love is here/ Beware." I really don't know what's going on.
Meredith: Maybe fear of being loved? Because sometimes if you've-
Mary: -yeah-
Meredith: -had these cognitions... present in your life, you feel like you don't deserve it.
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: Maybe that. And it can be hard to accept it?
Mary: I think it definitely could be that.
Mary: Yeah (sighs). What is that about?
Meredith: There's also some imagery- (reads lyrics) "Where the sunlight grabs the lake/ It's frozen in the flames/ Beneath the sleeping town/ With the riots raining down?"
Meredith: Yeah. (Reads lyrics) "I'm all yours now/ It's all for you?" A little bit puzzling.
Mary: This is one of the songs that has been kind of easy to gloss over the lyrics, from listening to it, just because the tune and the- everything is really just, like, satisfying and-
Meredith: -mhmm-
Mary: -happy. So I feel like I... need more time with the lyrics.
Meredith: Mhmm. Almost.
Mary: They might- you know- Tweedy also, like- I know we've been talking about how he's kind of had this deeper level of writing, but sometimes he might just be writing stuff because it sounds good.
Meredith: Possibly.
Mary: Because that's, like, kind of how he used to write. And it's poetic, and it's interesting.
Meredith: I don't know. I'm feel like I'm kind of getting it, maybe, as I'm looking at it more. I'm gonna take a stab at it.
Mary: Okay, take a stab at it.
Meredith: So the first verse (reads lyrics) "So tangled in the wild/ Seeing myself as something more mean/ Out in the country/ Sadness wants me/ Further away from the scene." So... it's kind of like he... is trying to run away from it.
Mary: Hmm.
Meredith: That's the sense I get.
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: Trying to run away from it. And then... with the... "sunlight" verse- that I've already read, but I'll read it again- (reads lyrics) "Where the sunlight grabs the lake/ It's frozen in the flames." So when you see, kind of, the sun... rising or setting over a lake, the... sunrise or sunset, it's reflected-
Mary: -yeah-
Meredith: -in the water. And so it's kind of frozen, and it kind of looks like flames? That's the image I'm getting. But then (reads lyrics) "Beneath the sleeping town/ With the riots raining down." When you pick it apart, it's an image of beauty, but it's kind of conveyed with this foreboding language.
Mary: Yeah, the line that like, "It's all for you."
Meredith: Mhmm.
Mary: It's like this language that people use when they do something destructive, but they're trying to justify it by being like, "I did this for you!"
Meredith: (Laughs) right! Yeah.
Mary: Which is what I think of?
Meredith: Uh huh.
Mary: I'm wondering if it has to do with some kind of self destructive... behavior.
Meredith: It's interesting that these lyrics are here, but the... overall... feel of it is... one of comfort.
Mary: Oh, yeah. Definitely.
Meredith: And even the way... he- sings (singing) "Right now-"
Mary: -it's kind of a lazy vocal. It's almost whispered.
Meredith: Yeah. It's almost like a lullaby sort of quality to it.
Mary: Yeah. It's soothing!
Meredith: Mhmm.
Mary: It's definitely soothing. It's kind of a dichotomy.
Meredith: Maybe... that love can be kind of scary, and when you see that it's all around, it's kind of something that's difficult to... accept, and it's something that we often don't even want to believe.
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: And it's hard to believe when you see examples of hate and people being cruel or... violent.
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: So it can be hard to trust love when it does present itself.
Mary: Hmm.
Meredith: Or it could be that it's a song about the Pokémon Bewear.
Mary: (Laughs).
Meredith: The giant (laughs) pink bear... that, uh, follows around Team Rocket in the show? No? Anybody?
Mary: (Laughs) Yes!
Meredith: Mhmm. And he tries to... thwart all of their attempts to (laughs) catch Pikachu.
Mary: I like that interpretation. "Tangled in the wild" kind of sounds like a Pokémon-esque image.
Meredith: Mmm. Right.
Mary: Wild Pokémon... in the grass...
Meredith: (Laughs) that's right!
Mary: Every episode will have a new little pop culture connection.
Meredith: Eh, it just flows.
Mary: That Wilco totally intended.
Meredith: I- (laughs) I think so.
Mary: They totally intended us to think of Pokémon. Why the heck not?
Meredith: Yeah. It's at least worth a shot, describing it that way.
Mary: (Laughs) alright. How do we feel about that one?
Meredith: I feel good about it. I also feel like I would be eager to hear the input of others on this one.
Mary: Me too. Maybe for some of these ones that stump us a little more, we could have some guests come back in.
Meredith: Perhaps.
Mary: Yeah.
Meredith: Perhaps we can.
Mary: We've got a couple friends that want to talk about Wilco.
Meredith: Mhmm.
Mary: There may be a part B.
Meredith: There just may.
Mary: Alright, so make sure that you subscribe... to Wilco Will Love You on your favorite podcasting platform. And follow us on Instagram, @wwlypodcast. And email us at wwlypodcast@gmail.com if you want to discuss... this... episode further, just... be respectful and nice, and... treat others as you would like to be treated when talking about art and music.
Meredith: And remember-
Mary: -Wilco-
Meredith: -Will-
Mary: -Love-
Meredith: -You!
Mary: You!
Meredith: You, personally.
Mary: You, personally. Alright. Bye!
Meredith: Bye-bye!
(Outro: Wilco Will Love You is co-hosted by Mary MacLane and me, Meredith Coons. It is edited by Greta Stromquist and recorded at Portola Studios. Theme music by Adam Nash. You can rate and review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you prefer to listen, so that you don't miss an episode.)