How does a song work? What does it actually do? It doesn’t instruct, exactly, or teach, necessarily. A song, I’d say, causes the listener to assume a certain stance. Through some intersection of melody/lyrics/arrangement, it causes a shadow-being within us to get a certain expression on its face and fall into a certain posture. (Argent’s “Hold Your Head Up,” for example, would cause my 1970s teenage self to assume a, well, Thor-like posture: stoic, windswept, capable of enduring any hardship while, you know, holding my head up.)
In my favorite songs, this stance-causation is essentially moral-ethical — it makes me feel more able to go out and live. In the current bombastic and frightening political moment, I find myself listening obsessively to Wilco’s 12-minute opus, “One Sunday Morning,” which induces in me, reliably, a suite of feelings I might describe as patient quiet-mindedness + firm resolve to love better, and serves as an antidote to the harshness of the moment; a reminder that, with enough patience and fellow-feeling, things can sometimes prove workable between people, even if they disagree.
How does the song accomplish this? Was that the intention? I’m not sure. Like much of Wilco’s work, it’s fundamentally a damned good popular song (simple chords, compelling melody), rendered symphonic by a process by which the song, seemingly rebelling against its own simplicity, seems to be seeking higher levels of emotionality via sonic complexity. This led me to assume the song had to be a result of weeks of arranging. But reportedly the band recorded it in one take, learning it from the songwriter Jeff Tweedy as the tape rolled. The song starts with a catchy eight-note guitar riff, to which it keeps returning, like a well-intentioned guy steering back to his mantra. Via inventive instrumental fills and a false ending (from which it rejuvenates with renewed purpose), it manages the strange task of seeming contemplative while escalating like crazy. It puts me in mind of a group of lifelong pals on a front porch, trying to musically solve some existential problem they can’t quite articulate.
What does the song mean? Well, a great song means beyond simple sense. It means by how it sounds. The lyrics, already beautiful — Jeff Tweedy is one of the great conversational poets of our time — are made additionally beautiful (are made “song-beautiful”) by the way Tweedy sings them. His voice is that of a good friend, singing the story of some strange trip from which he’s just returned: self-effacing, dear — a wry voice, rich with love for the world. The trip cost him something but was so deep that he has to share it. The song is, yes, O.K., “about” a father and a son, “about” religious belief — but really, what it’s “about” is the way it sounds, and the way it keeps joyfully overflowing the formal banks it keeps spontaneously making for itself.
The effect of all of this on the listener — this listener anyway — is transformative. Listening to “One Sunday Morning” (every time) fixes me — like some sort of aural medicine. I feel a positive alteration in my body and mind: a renewed sense of humility at the sadness of the world, and a corresponding resolve to keep trying to be better; freshly reminded of the stakes of being alive, and of the fact that there are, at my disposal, more positive resources than I am currently employing. In this, “One Sunday Morning” serves, for me, as a reliable 12-minute prayer.
The Fat Angel Sings 