Wilco Wednesday Song Spotlight: “Cruel to Be Kind”

Okay, so obviously this is not really a Wilco song. It's a Nick Lowe song that Jeff Tweedy and co. covered during their tour for The Whole Love in 2011, but it is really featured here because it was just announced that on Record Store Day, on November 29, there will be a 40th Anniversary release of a 7-inch of “Cruel To Be Kind” featuring Lowe's original single backed by the B-Side of “Cruel To Be Kind” performed by Lowe and Wilco in 2012 for an iTunes session.

So here's the Wilcopedia entry for the song:

“Cruel To Be Kind” (Ian Gomm, Nick Lowe) 

Wilco’s version of the brilliant British singer-songwriter Nick Lowe’s only Top 40 hit, the 1979 power-pop classic “Cruel To Be Kind,’ has the distinction of being their only officially released cover that features the song’s original performer. Here's the original video (then called promo film) for the song:

With Lowe on lead vocals, they recorded the song for an eight song iTunes-only release that dropped online on January 17, 2012. The performance followed their fall 2011 tour together, for which Lowe opened for Wilco as a solo act and would then come out to join them during their encore for a stab at one or two of his songs. 

The first such appearance was at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, on September 25, 2011, and involved Lowe and Wilco performing a cover of Kentucky singer-songwriter Jim Ford’s “36 Inches High,” which Lowe had previously covered for his first solo album, 1978’s Jesus Of Cool (released as Pure Pop For Now People in the USA). 

At their next show together, where they played ‘36 Inches High’ a second time, they added Lowe’s “I Love My Label,” another Jesus Of Cool track, which Wilco had covered at Solid Sound the previous June. Wilco and Lowe continued playing “36 Inches High’ and “I Love My Label” at their next few shows. 

Then, after a break during which North Carolina–born artist Jonathan Wilson filled in as Wilco’s opener, Lowe showed up at their show at Roundhouse in London, England, in late October, where he played “Cruel To Be Kind” for the first time with Tweedy & company. A month later, Lowe again joined Wilco for “Cruel To Be Kind,” but this time at two shows shot for the long-running TV series Austin City Limits, filmed live at the Moody Theater on December 1 and 2, 2011. 

One of these night’s performances of Lowe’s bouncy power-pop ditty was included as part of a compilation of both nights’ shows that made up an hour-long program that aired on PBS on February 4, 2012. From then on, Wilco and Lowe (or “Wilc-Lowe,’ as Tweedy joked more than once during their run) performed “Cruel To Be Kind” at every remaining show of their 2011 tour. 

This led to the iTunes Session version of the song, recorded at Wilco’s Chicago loft in December 2011, which to my ears is just as definitive a take on the song as the one recorded by Rockpile for Lowe’s second solo album, 1979’s Labour Of Lust. I'll leave you now with this:

More later...