Headache Music

I ran across an Opinion piece yesterday in the New York Times written by Jeff Tweedy, the leader of the rock band Wilco. I have always given Tweedy the benefit of the doubt, especially about some of the offerings on Wilco’s latest albums, and especially the disc titled A Ghost is Born. A couple of the songs actually would give me a headache while listening.

As Tweedy explains in his piece, that was at least part of the point. Tweedy has suffered from migraine headaches, depression and panic anxiety almost his entire life, and after collapsing and entering a rehabilitation facility that treated his migraines in relation to his other maladies, he says he hasn’t had a migraine in several years. The headaches, depression and anxiety had a serious (and often deleterious) effect on his music, especially during the making of A Ghost is Born. One of the songs that especially got on my nerves was “Less Than You Think,” a long, slow piece that ends with an irritating, almost unlistenable 15-minute instrumental.

"There is a lot of material that mirrored my condition. In particular there’s a piece of music — “Less Than You Think” — that ends with a 12-minute drone that was an attempt to express the slow painful rise and dissipation of migraine in music," Tweedy writes. "I don’t know why anyone would need to have that expressed to them musically. But it was all I had."

I still will probably hit the fast-forward button when “Less Than You Think” comes on the shuffle, but I appreciate what the song is trying to accomplish. And Tweedy’s journal will tell you more about creativity and mental health than anything you will read in music magazines about those subjects this year or any.

Despite dealing with subject matter that is in no way funny, he still manages to show a sense of humor about his situation: "You know, seeing a rock musician vomit on the side of the stage, I’m sure people thought I was completely out of my mind on drugs or strung out," he admits. "It didn’t have any kind of long term impact on how people perceived the band, though. Crazy thing is, in my business, that sort of thing is considered an asset. Sick but true."