Thanksgiving, Music, and Memory in a Lifetime of Songs
<p Thanksgiving in the United States arrives on the fourth Thursday of November, a day anchored in gratitude for harvest and the year as it unfolds.
<p In Jeff Tweedy’s landscape, that cadence becomes a yearly Thanksgiving for the songs gathered over a lifetime. It is a symbolic feast that celebrates how music renews itself with each new melody that catches the ear and endures in memory well beyond the moment.
<p Some may claim that anyone can assemble a list of songs that shaped a life. Yet Tweedy offers more than a simple catalog. He writes from the listener’s perspective, not as the frontman of Wilco, and centers the work on the power songs exert over us. The book isn’t a random collection of favorites or a string of anecdotes; it is a sincere, humble exploration of how sound helps shape identity. Tweedy’s voice—steady, unpretentious, and seasoned by years in the public eye—adds a rare sense of integrity to the project. It sits within a career that often reflects contemporary sensibilities, including tracks that appear on recent band releases such as the album Cousin.
<p There are moments in the prose where mood shifts, and it becomes clear that a song can alter perception. Evacuation, a track that travels with a listener, can make the world feel unexpectedly beautiful when headphones are on and the city hums around them.
<p There is a world inside each song, a kind of family memory centered on music. The narrative does not shy away from difficult episodes; songs the narrator initially dislikes become meaningful, and others once cherished reveal themselves as misread with time. Tweedy emerges as eclectically referenced, yet his taste remains coherent across his body of work, reflecting a consistent musical sensibility.
<p From Deep Purple to Rosalía, the journey invites listeners who come with open ears and a willingness to listen. Tweedy resists the claim that music has changed beyond recognition, while acknowledging its roots in a time when acquiring a record required patience—days, weeks, even months—before the next coveted album could be found, a period that still resonates with many North American music fans.
<p In the preface on page 12, Tweedy shares a personal ethic about how to relate to a song. He notes that the book might have been his first, had ambition led him differently and if a clearer sense of what matters most in life existed: other people’s songs. He speaks to how those songs taught him to think about himself and others, and how listening with intention and openness can be both deeply personal and universally resonant. The central question implied is how songs absorb and contribute to experiences and preserve memories.
<p REM, Otis Redding, The Ramones, Dolly Parton, Abba, the artist Michelle Shocked, and Diane Izzo surface in the narrative, with Mavis Staples holding a particularly important place in Tweedy’s development. These names contribute to a distinctive jukebox, where each track reveals a memory or a moment in time and proves that there truly can be a world in every song.
<p Only one band appears in full—the Beatles—though not through a single track but through their entire discography. It serves as a familiar touchstone, anchoring the mosaic and underscoring how certain artists become touchpoints across decades and landscapes.