This song is fairly new to me (the album came out in June).  I grabbed the CD it at the public library last week, so I don’t have all that much cash invested in it.  I haven’t been into Wilco for awhile.  After Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, A Ghost is Born failed to grab me.  I skipped Sky Blue Sky altogether.

Walking downtown a few days ago, I took Wilco (The Album) for a spin.  “You Never Know” was the song that stuck out the most, although others are quite good as well (“You and I,” for example).  I just learned online that “You Never Know” was the album’s first single (and Wilco’s first #1 on the AAA charts – whatever that means), so I guess it’s not surprising that this one “jumped out at me.”

All kinds of folks out there have pointed out how this song alludes to George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” from his All Things Must Pass album.  That’s fairly obvious.  What’s funny to me is how the reference creeps up on you.  It’s as though Wilco realized the similarity in chord structure and overall feel as they were recording it, and consciously (i’m sure) decided to play up the reference with the guitar and keyboard overdubs. 

It’s fitting, in a way, because Jeff Tweedy always struck me as the George Harrison to Jay Farrar’s Lennon/McCartney… don’t ask me to back that up, though.  I guess it’s that Wilco’s recent songs are so subtle.  They creep up rather than bombard you with tunefulness.  Like George.

I kinda like how Jeff Tweedy isn’t afraid to be repetitive in a song.  That simple vamp at the beginning comes back time after time, and it’s never artificially shortened for any reason.  It’s just a nice, hooky little groove that is allowed to play itself out.

Key lyric: “Every generation thinks it’s the end of the world.”

Album: Wilco (The Album)