Wednesday Wilco Song Spotlight: “At Least That’s What You Said”

As today is the 18th Anniversary of A Ghost is Born (Nonesuch Records, June 22, 2004), the Wednesday Wilco Song Spotlight shines on the opening track of that much acclaimed studio release:

“At Least That’s What You Said” (Jeff Tweey)

Jeff Tweedy: vocals, electric guitar 

John Stirratt: bass 

Glenn Kotche: drums 

Leroy Bach: piano 

Mikael Jorgensen: synthesizer 

Jim O’Rourke: end piano 

When Wilco first played “At Least That’s What You Said” at the now defunct Otto’s Rock Club & Bar in DeKalb, Illinois, back in the spring of 2003, it unfolded into a nearly eight-minute, headbanging, guitar-driven epic that wowed the audience. The studio version, released over a year later in summer 2004, is, at five minutes and thirty-three seconds, much tighter, but it still gives plenty of room for Jeff Tweedy—now the band’s lead guitarist, following the dismissal of Jay Bennett - to stretch out on his instrument.

Jeff Tweedy’s 2004 book Adult Head contains several poems that include lines or full verses that would later end up in the songs on A Ghost Is Born. The first three verses of the poem “Muzzle” would be used in “Muzzle of Bees,” but the poem’s last two verses are very close in wording to the first two verses of “At Least That’s What You Said.” 

This sprawling, sectional song was influenced by Richard Lloyd of the seminal New York art-punk band Television. Tweedy’s wife, Sue Miller, had given him a guitar lesson from Lloyd for his thirty-fourth birthday; the lesson inspired Tweedy, and he “filled up a notebook with new possibilities” that led to Wilco working out a “ferocious coda to the tender ‘At Least That’s What You Said’ that plays like a tribute to his mentor [Lloyd].”

In The Wilco Book, Tweedy reveals that he can’t listen to the song, “when the music comes in, when the drums come in, without crying. It sounds like a panic attack to me. It’s representational, you know. The second half of the solo when the guitar becomes more frantic is unsettling to me in a really beautiful way. It says more than anything I’ve ever written lyrically and it just happened.”

Lyrically, the song is one of Tweedy’s simplest. It seemingly takes place in the aftermath of an argument between lovers, with stinging lines like “I thought it was cute for you to kiss my purple black eye / Even though I caught it from you” recalling the darkness of Summerteeth tracks like “Via Chicago” and “She’s A Jar.” This is conveyed over lilting, lightly strummed guitar lines and sad piano tinkling. That is until the aforementioned drums come in and take us into more extreme sonic territory. 

For a fascinating contrast, fans should seek out Tweedy’s solo acoustic version of “At Least That’s What You Said.” Bootleg recordings of the song’s debut at the Vic Theatre in Chicago on January 9, 2003, illustrate its bare- bones chord structure, but with no loss of its power—and at only two minutes, thirty-six seconds, too. 

Wilco have gone on to perform the song more than 440 times, in versions that vary in length from five to ten minutes. The two-disc edition of A Ghost Is Born contains a live version that hovers at six minutes in length, recorded at the Orpheum Theater in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 25, 2004, and gives the band’s then-new lead guitarist, Nels Cline, a chance to put his mark on the song. 

But as another superlative live performance of the song, caught on film at their show at Tipitina’s in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 4, 2008, makes clear, the song is Tweedy’s to shred. In this version, Cline adds minimal accompaniment while Tweedy tears into his tortured, strangulated solo, seemingly aware that “At Least That’s What You Said” is one of those times when you’ve got to let your leader lead. 

This is an edited excerpt from Wilcopedia by Daniel Cook Johnson, published by Jawbone Press (www.jawbonepress.com). Order your copy here.

More later...