“The dead don’t die.” – Jeff Tweedy
Whoever believes that a 58-year-old man can’t rock out any more hasn’t heard (or has heard and hasn’t understood) Jeff Tweedy’s new song “Lou Reed Was My Babysitter” from his 2025 triple album Twilight Override.
The symbolic title of this song alone is worth volumes as it encapsulates an American way of life, for good and ill, in five words.
Anything with Lou in it has to be great, or near-great, to justify the use of his name and this song is.
Tweedy is a Chicago artist and rock and roll, no matter what else anyone says, was born in Chicago, and Chicago alone.
That fact is a fact because of two Chicago men who were rock and roll artists before such a thing existed.
Their stage names were Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.
(Both of these men came out of the same general part of the US South originally so in that sense one can say that rock and roll was/is a child of the South. But it was in Chicago that they both perfected and disseminated their art.)
Rock and roll is, first and foremost, about THE ATTITUDE. It must combine raw (not overproduced), artful, art-filled, and rebellious in one package. Or disguise.
See the pictures of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Bob Dylan for examples of The Attitude at its best.
Or Lou Reed. (Or The Band or Zeppelin or The Clash or Nirvana or Lana Del Rey…)
ART is NOT about one artist copying another artist. All that kind of behavior ever amounts to is sad, and bad (in the bad way), art.
The artist must take bits and pieces from all kinds of different arts and artists (and other sources), and then she or he must combine and synthesize all those myriad different bits into something that is recognizable and brand new (unrecognizable) at the same time.
The best disguise wins when it becomes no longer a disguise.
Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf invented rock and roll before there was such a thing.
Everyone else you can name, from Bill Haley to Little Richard to Chuck Berry to Jerry Lee Lewis to Elvis Presley, or anyone, came afterward.
Muddy and Howlin’ were rock and roll artists before there was such a thing.
In that sense and many another, these two are artists on the scale of Dali and Picasso. And, given rock and roll’s worldwide impact, maybe greater than D and P (almost). Given the effect they had on the world at large, they can also be mentioned in the same breath with Beethoven. Their work is likely to last as long as poets like Robert Burns, John Donne and John Keats.
Jeffy Tweedy’s new song “Lou Reed Was My Babysitter” lives up to that legacy, and does it justice, as does his whole new triple album, Twilight Override. (Not every single song on the album, on its own, does, but the whole thing as a whole thing most certainly does.)
The dead don’t die, indeed.
PLAY IT LOUD!
PS: Hank Williams was also a rock and roll artist before there was such a thing; that’s why Leonard Cohen said Hank is “a hundred floors above me in the tower of song.”
literally stories 
Hi Dale
I remember watching a documentary where Kieth Richards talked about how influential Chicago was to their music.
Great stuff!
Christopher
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Hi Christopher
Yes! Sometimes I don’t know whether Chicago did more for The Stones or whether The Stones did more for Chicago. I do know that both Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf repeatedly thanked The Stones for helping increase their own record sales.
I was just re-listening again recently for the nine billionth time to “Gimme Shelter” and “Sympathy for the Devil.”
“Ooh, a storm is threatening / my very life today. / If I don’t get some shelter, / oh yeah: I’m gonna fade away.”
DB
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Dale
This connects the then to the now. I fear that the good music will go underground because there is nothing but processed junk like Velveeta at the top. Rock is now “classic”–even punk and hip hop have been homogenized. No more street poetry. Just complaining to the populist ear.
This hows there is hope. Although the real underground has much fewer idiots making noise!
Leila
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Hi Leila
I think the whole problem now is they try to make music that they can sell to everybody, which means millions, or billions, of people all at once.
And any time you’re trying to please millions, or billions, of people at once, you are bound to head straight for the gutter, for the simplistic, for the generic, and for the “thing” without any real style or substance of its own. Such is sadly true, I believe, for everything from music to politics to sports, all of which have become arena spectacles now: not to say Roman Colloseum spectacles now.
And the same is true for movies, too! And even books (see the Harry Potter phenomenon).
Grunge music, for example, started out as a LOCAL phenomena, and that was the way many of the musicians (especially Kurt) wanted to keep it, even though many of them were also seduced by the dollar signs simultaneously (and they were so young that one cannot blame them).
It almost seems as if the choice has become: sell out and become generic; or remain anonymous (or underground, as you say).
Probably why Dylan called his movie MASKED AND ANONYMOUS (great title, OK movie, Bob)…
Dale
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Dale, I like your enthusiastic style of writing – ideal for an essay on rock ‘n roll. A while back, you wrote in a similar engaging fashion about Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf – the latter having once given me one of the great musical experiences of my life in the unlikely setting of Aberdeen’s His Majesty’s Theatre. Afraid I dont listen to much contemporary music, so I’ve never heard of Jeff Tweedy. But on the basis of your recommendation, I’m happy to give him a go. Clearly a title like ‘Lou Reed was my babysitter’ has got to be worth a listen. Thanks, mick
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Thanks, Mick!
Tweedy and his band Wilco also made an album with Billy Bragg called MERMAID AVENUE (1998), where they put a bunch of unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics to music. One of my favorite albums ever. (Woody left over a thousand sets of song lyrics unpublished at his death: all piled up in old shoe boxes.)
Dale
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I often have the feeling these days that we have lost most of the poet musicians. I hate to sound like an old fuddy duddy but honestly so much today is just noise. At the time of writing I am listening to John, George , Paul and the guy who wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles – isn’t he looking good for his age? I digress. To be honest I am happy to visit the ‘then’ as Leila says and just keep my ears alive for something good in the Now. Interesting post as always from your ‘pen’ thanks. dd
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Hi Diane
Conor Oberst is a real-and-true poet musician who still lives. Check out his 2016 album RUMINATIONS for confirmation! Most of it is just him and his piano and the personal intensity is amazing.
The Beatles will always be around: deservedly so.
Dale
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The name Jeff Tweedy utterly unknown to me. “The best disguise wins . . .” put me in mind of Elvis’s allegedly coming third as himself in an Impersonation Competition circa early 70s. Lovely stuff, Dale.
Geraint
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Hi Geraint
Yes: Tweedy is a household name in Chicago (“everyone” knows who he is here); but he is very much less known anywhere and everywhere else, I do believe. I myself used to live right down the street from him and saw him all the time. He had a habit then of wandering around on nondescript errands (probably still does).
Thank you!
Dale
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Hi Dale,
It’s great to see you back with this enlightening and interesting essay!
I enjoyed reading the references.
Just an observation and definitely not a criticism – This seemed a bit lighter from you.
But I thought on that and have realised, that says more about me than you as for the first time I knew most of the references!!!
I checked out the ‘Lou Reed Was My Babysitter Song’ It had rawness, was interesting and so much energy!!
The line about the dead not dying niggled at me and finally I realised why. It was from the first ‘Beetlejuice’ film, there was a place where there was death for the dead. That made me think on your comments regarding the music for the sake of making a mint. (There is a point to this!) Like a lot of commercialised shite, the second ‘Beetlejuice’ film should never have been made. And that is like a few second albums!!!
Excellent as always my fine friend.
Hope life is treating you well.
Hugh
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Hi Hugh
I saw the second Beetlejuice and I enjoyed about five minutes of it, I think. (Although Winona Ryder is good in anything just by being Winona Ryder.)
I think you’ve cited Billy Bragg before (?). He made an album with Tweedy and Tweedy’s band, Wilco. Called: MERMAID AVENUE (1998).
It’s based on old, unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics.
The song “The Unwelcome Guest,” sung by Billy Bragg on that album, is about the poor stealing from the rich. You can guess what happens to him. (Tweedy does brilliant background vocals on this song.) It is a song for our times if there ever was one.
Dale
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…
“To the rich man’s bright lodges I ride in this wind / On my good horse I call you my shiny Black Bess / To the playhouse of fortune / To take the bright silver / And gold you have taken / From somebody else…”
From “The Unwelcome Guest,” written by Woody Guthrie, sung by Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy.
…
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Thanks for introducing me to this song. Your excellent essay reminded me of the movie Cadillac Records.
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