This Wilco album was released in 1999 and became one that I would spend my early years listening to. As kids we aren’t particularly interested in sitting and listening to music, at least I wasn’t at first, or I didn’t think I was. I was more interested in match box cars, legos, and playing in the dirt. As I started to pay attention to this music though and songs from this album like “A Shot In The Arm” or “Via Chicago” I suddenly became interested in the little guitar we had laying around. I started to “play” it and had so much fun. I put “play” in quotation marks because I didn’t so much play it as I did beat it with the back of my hand. I ended up leaving that guitar at a campsite we stayed at and I was devastated.

Eventually my dad got another guitar from his work and soon enough me and my brother were playing concerts in our living-room, singing into a mic stand (with no microphone in it) for our parents, however incoherently. This album made me want to pick up the guitar and inspired me to learn how to play music. Now I have learned how to actually play it and it may have never happened if it weren’t for the songs on this album.

made me want to play the guitar

guitar left it at a campsite

inspired me to sing into mic stand