Friday I’m In Love: Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back)

Duh. Of course I love the Jeff Tweedy memoir.

Every year, we have a contest with our kids. We keep track of all the books we read in a year and whoever reads the most, gets $50. This year, our 8yo daughter took home the prize. She’s going to spend the winnings on one of these absurd toy contraptions. I don’t blame her. If I had won, I was going to buy a Casio watch and a record. Reading prize money should not be spent responsibly.

I didn’t win, though. I lost. And I lost badly. I’m afraid that if I admit how few books I read last year that you’ll stop reading this immediately because you should not read anything written by a person who reads a number of books in a calendar year that is equal to the number of good albums released ever by the Eagles.

What I’m trying to say here is that I read zero books last year. Also, obviously, I hate the Eagles.

So, with a little free time on my hands, I’m trying to right that wrong. And I’m off to a roaring start! So far, I’ve read one-and-a-half books and I’m crushing my dumb kids. They’re never getting another $50 from me again. Unless, of course, they really need some cool new shoes or some money for the movies or a new backpack or a steak dinner or… C’mon, I’m not fooling anyone. I’m a pushover and my kids take whatever they want from me.

But back to the all the books I’m reading.

My wife gave me the Jeff Tweedy memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), for Christmas. I read it in two sittings because a book like that is basically heroin for a guy like me (Wilco superfan, mid 40s, beardy, glasses, etc.). It delivered all the predictable highs (teenage songwriting! run-ins with Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash!) and unfortunate lows (relationship troubles with anyone named Jay… prescription drug addiction…). The story moves well and manages to offer a fairly balanced self-portrait. I didn’t walk away from it thinking Jeff Tweedy was a better person than I imagined and I didn’t want to punch him in the face, either. So, win-win.

There’s one passage I really want to share here and then I’ll let you move on with your Friday. Jeff (I’m gonna go first-name basis now) spends a bit of time in the book writing about how much he dislikes the Tortured Artist archetype—and how, similarly, he doesn’t think that acts of creativity should be treated with any sort of preciousness. His approach is predictably Midwestern: you make something, then you make something else. Anyway, these two pages will be with me for a while. I hope you love them as well.

Every Friday I share something I love. Usually, it’s a new infatuation. Occasionally, it’s something else. We’ll see how it goes. Thanks for the theme song, Phoebe Bridgers!