What Light

So, you can purchase the first single from Wilco's new album Sky Blue Sky on iTunes. The song is called "What Light." It's been around for about a month streaming from various websites. This is the first full quality version to come out.

This is quite possibly the happiest Jeff Tweedy has sounded in years. The song is filled with hope, something that has been absent from his songs for quite a while.

Musically, the song is very americana/folk-rock. It's not really the deconstructed rock found on Wilco's last three albums. Yet, it's not quite the country roots rock found on AM and Being There. In my opinion, the song kind of channels a sort of Bob Dylan meets Woody Guthrie meets...well...Jeff Tweedy. It reminds me of songs like "California Stars" and "One By One" from the Mermaid Avenue albums--which was Wilco (and Billy Bragg) giving birth to songs with unreleased Woody Guthrie lyrics.

Nonetheless, "What Light" makes me even more excited for May 15. I've pre-ordered the album on vinyl (with a free copy of the CD). I even paid the extra money to guarantee the album is on my door step on May 15. I just can't wait.

Also, I've decided not to listen to the bootleg copy of the album that's floating around. I just don't want my first experiences of the album to come from low quality bootlegs of the web stream Wilco put on their site. Also, I think having the full copy of Neon Bible by Arcade Fire before it came out sucked all the fun out of buying the album. I'd prefer not to mess with that when it comes to Wilco. I want to experience this album for what it is.