I remember sitting in my apartment in New Haven, CT, and watching I Am Trying to Break Your Heart for the first time. I was (am) a fan of Wilco, and the documentary covering the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (and the remaking of Wilco in the face of all sorts of adversity) was powerful. I was a naive 23-year-old grad student at Yale Divinity and full of my own anxieties about what the future might hold and where life might lead, so this particular scene where Jeff is signing (another) record deal to get YHF released shortly after their original label dropped them because of the band’s insistence on putting out what would become the best album of the 21st Century so far seemed like a clarion call to me.
Particularly this song… what was this song, I wondered??
I wish I could go back and tell Young Sam that everything would turn out well despite life’s inevitable ups and downs and my lingering anxieties about the past, present, and future (and social situations). I tried to pass that on to my children and my students in the almost 20 years of classroom teaching as well, and hopefully those seeds will find good soil.
I didn’t give up the pursuit to find “that song” after hearing Wilco perform it live a few times and eventually tracked it down to Bill Fay, who composed and recorded the original version back in the early 70s. I just read this morning that Fay passed away in February of this year. That makes me sad, but also uplifted, because his music, especially this song, has touched so many of us over the years.
Those seeds found good soil in my head canon. I’ve been changing diapers for my children since 2007, and I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sung this song to them while doing so (including this morning). I have had big moments in meetings, in the classroom, before a speech, after a business call, etc., and this song is what I’d call my mantra for centering myself when those anxieties creep in and try to steal the moment. I can’t remember preaching a sermon when I didn’t at least hum the tune while getting my robe on before service.
I’d like to think that most of us have something like this song in our lives that brings us back to ourselves in moments of fear, doubt, loathing, or anxiety. I’m not sure if it’s cognitively the best long-term fix, but it has worked for me in the last 23 years since originally hearing Tweedy strum the tune while surrounded by tired and exhausted bandmates.
Thank you, Bill Fay. Thank you, Jeff Tweedy.
