My Darling

Jake and I have been long-time Wilco fans, even since we took a chance in 1996 and spent college-era money we didn't have on their second album, "Being There." Our minds were happily blown, and the continued attraction, at times, hedges the silly and ridiculous. We continue to spend money we don't have on their subsequent albums and a multitude of concerts, with Wico taking the prize as the band whose live shows we have seen the most and love the most (though, Neko Case, jumped a few spots with the Ithaca show last month.) We have purchased concert tickets when we barely had gas money. We stood outside in the cold dark at the 9:30 Club for hours during the terrifying DC sniper spree, just to make sure we could get good spots right up against the stage. It's just not quite the same thrill if we can't see spit and picks flying.

When their album, "Summerteeth" came out in 1999, I found the song, "My Darling" so charming. It's a song written from a father to a child---very simple and endearing. I found it incredibly touching that a man could make himself so vulnerable, exposing his love for his child to the entire world. It wasn't my favorite song on the album, but it made me smile.

When Jake and I began TTC in January 2004, I would happily listen to this song and daydream about Jake singing it to our child one day. He learned how to play it and sing it on his guitar. When I listened to it, my eyes were teary, and I worked on memorizing the lyrics. We couldn't wait to make it a nighttime lullaby staple.

Years passed without the arrival of children, and the song suffered. It became so much less enjoyable---a source of small pain, a little dig at what we didn't have. I started skipping it on the album. If it began playing before I could hit fast-forward, my eyes would tear up a little at the piano intro, but then I would degrade the song to defend myself and think, "It's cheesy anyway. I don't want to hear that shit." Wilco rarely plays it at shows, so I never had to suffer through it in person. It wasn't that I couldn't appreciate a father's love for his child anymore; It was that hearing the song made me think of those assumptions from years ago, and I felt stupid and naive, and strangely humiliated by that naivete.

Last week, in preparation for seeing Wilco live at Tower Theatre in Philly, Jake and I had all their albums on rotation. It's part of our ritual for psyching up for a show---we load up everything by the upcoming artist into the car and house stereos and basically go on a binge. By the time the show night arrives, we're like junkies pumped on the super-good-shit, waiting for that one last awesome hit to send us over the edge. It was during this binge that I rediscovered, with much pleasure and happier tears, "My Darling." I hadn't thought about the song in awhile, and had been mostly trying to warm up to their newer albums (and loving their awesome live album, "Kicking Television.") When "My Darling" and Jeff Tweedy's soft, genuine voice began to play, the whole song was reborn. I bawled in the car on my way to work---so happy to be able to love this song in a whole new way:

MY DARLING

Go back to sleep now
My darling
And I'll keep all the bad dreams away
Breathe now, think sweet things
And I'll think of all the right words to say

Because we made you
My darling
With the love in each of our hearts
We were a family, my darling
Right from the start

Grow up now
My darling
Please don't you grow up too fast
And be sure, darling
To make all the good times last

Because we made you
My darling
With the love in each of our hearts
We were a family, my darling
Right from the start