In June of 2014, Wilco released A Ghost Is Born, a guitar-centric masterpiece that took the experimental leanings of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to thrilling new places. I wrote my tribute to the album when it turned 10, and when the 20th anniversary hit last year, our institutitonal attention was devoted to more current Wilco business. But today, they've made A Ghost Is Born a current concern again by releasing a gargantuan reissue with 65 unreleased tracks, which seems like a great opportunity to reiterate: Hey! Great album!
The most expansive version of the A Ghost Is Born box set contains the original album, alternate takes, outtakes, demos, a full-length recording of Wilco’s 2004 concert at Boston’s Wang Center, and the band’s "fundamentals" workshop sessions. The edition you can stream today doesn't have most of that stuff, but there's more than enough unearthed treasure to justify loading it up.
Online, there are 19 additional alternate versions and unreleased tracks recorded in 2003 at the Chicago recording studio SOMA and New York's Sear Sound. All the material that made it on the album is presented in radically different form, and you get an assortment of songs that did not make the tracklist, such as "Kicking Television" (which later became the title track for Wilco's live album), "Improbable Germany" (which morphed into "Impossible Germany" on Sky Blue Sky), "Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard," "Panthers," "Diamond Claw," and "More Like The Moon."
I'm very much enjoying turning this New Music Friday into an Old Unreleased Wilco Friday; maybe you will like it too when you listen below.
At his Substack, Starship Casual, Jeff Tweedy offered some insights on the reissue Thursday:
I'm going through your cover song suggestions from last week. In the meantime, the giant A Ghost Is Born box set is coming out tomorrow. And while I don't tend to do a lot of straight-up promotion here on Substack (I won’t even link to it), it is pretty cool, so I thought I'd share a couple of songs before tomorrow’s debut.
“Diamond Claw” is one of my favorite unreleased tracks, and I still can't understand why we didn't pursue it a little further. Maybe it was just a little too chipper, a little too bright, for the mood surrounding that album. But there's a sorta lovely version of the song on the box set that was recorded in 2003. You can hear it below, alongside a version I relearned today.
“Improbable Germany” was recorded before I figured out that “Impossible” is a way better word to sing. There are other interesting differences in the lyrics. I always forget that things change, but they do.
Thank you all for your thoughtful suggestions. And thank you specifically to Cheryl Pawelski, who not only culls together each “TWIW, Etc.” but has a lot to do with the making of these mammoth reissues.
OxO—Jeffy
He also shared a freshly recorded solo version of "Diamond Claw." Check that out here.
A Ghost Is Born (Expanded Edition) is out now via Nonesuch.
