Wilcos Jeff Tweedy Wants You to Be Bad at Something. Its for Your Own Good.

Published: July 2, 2021, 9 a.m.

b'Recently, I picked up Jeff Tweedy\\u2019s \\u201cHow to Write One Song.\\u201d It was a bit of a lark. Tweedy is the frontman for Wilco, one of my favorite bands, but I\\u2019m not a songwriter, and I don\\u2019t plan to become one. But, unexpectedly, I loved the book. It\\u2019s the most generous and approachable guide to the creative process I\\u2019ve read.\\n\\nIt\\u2019s also relentlessly practical: To Tweedy, this really is a process, replete with practices that you can enjoy doing daily. As a writer of a very different sort, I\\u2019ve had a blast with them.\\n\\nSo I asked Tweedy to come on the show to talk about creativity, ands his approach to it. He debunks the idea that suffering is necessary (or even useful) for the creative process, talks through his relentless search for inspiration, sings and analyzes a few of my favorite songs, analyzes his relationship with his mother, shares some of his tricks for finding fresh language for old ideas and even convinces me to write some poetry.\\n\\nThis is a fun one.\\n\\nBook recommendations: \\n\\nDon Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes \\n\\nA Temple of Texts by William H. Gass\\n\\nThe MacGuffin by Stanley Elkin'