Week O' Wilco: Jesus, Etc.

Rock Turtleneck wishes you a Happy Easter, wherein we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead, but also the Easter Bunny delivering candy to little kids. In other words, Jesus Etc., which coincidentally is the name of one of Wilco’s most beautiful, most beloved songs.


As I wrote in a tribute to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot a couple months back This song garnered a lot of attention because it seems to foreshadow 9/11 with the words "Tall buildings shake/Voices escape singing sad sad songs" and "Skyscrapers scraping together."

But now that I’ve absorbed the song after almost 10 years of consistent listening, I’ve decided it has little to do with Jesus or 9/11. When Jeff Tweedy sings "Jesus, don't cry" he is pleading for a peaceful end to a lover's spat.

Like many great songs, "Jesus, Etc." is open to many interpretations and can be read as spiritual or secular, literal or metaphor, depending on your mood. Regardless of what the words mean or don’t mean, the song’s melody is gorgeous and it's already on its way to becoming a modern rock standard.

Norah Jones, whom I think has gone from being slightly overrated to underrated, has been doing a very nice live version of "Jesus, Etc." in recent shows. When I caught Wilco opening for Neil Young last January at MSG, she came out and sang it with the band. Here’s her version.


Now that we've covered Jesus, here's the Etc.: Did you know Norah Jones is one of the (I'm guessing) 300 or so children of Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar? Like his buddy George Harrison, he was never one to put his eggs in one basket.