Awake (Black Moon) [early demo]

Chit-Chat Check-In #166 • Transcript

One of the things we don’t talk about too often on here is songwriting. Which is kind of weird because it’s one of the things I’m kind of known for. But I found this track just looking for something to share with you guys. It’s an early version of the song “Black Moon” off of the album The Whole Love.

The song struck me because I don’t really remember writing these lyrics, or why I changed a whole bunch of them. I think I wrote this song not that long after my mother passed away. And I believe it’s about how often I would come home late at night and find my mother asleep on the couch with a cigarette in her mouth or hand. And there were many times she looked very unhealthy, or like she had passed away. I was always afraid I was going to come home and find her... not alive. This fear followed me around pretty much until she did die. And I think maybe that felt—and maybe even today feels—a little bit too personal and specific, even though I don’t think you get that story out of this song now.

The other thing is that the album The Whole Love has an abundance of O sounds. And in the liner notes, we made all of the Os holes, or what look like holes. In the deluxe edition it has die-cut holes on the cover. I was fascinated by the idea of the word “whole” being a homophone for “hole,” as in putting hole in something. Some part of you missing, something missing. A love that’s missing. An incomplete part of a relationship. And some of these lyrics don’t have the O sounds, so I probably kept the ones that had the O sounds, but I changed a lot of the other ones.

I think I also felt self-conscious about the lyric “She loved the bums/All the ones/That never stopped falling/Whole lives appalling.” It seems a little bit harsh. But that was one of the things my mother was infamous for. I say infamous because my father kind of hated it. She befriended a lot of people that were down on their luck. We had a woman that delivered the paper who was kind of a hard luck story, and my mother loved her and befriended her. All these people ended up coming to her funeral. And it was one of the things that made me really, really proud of my mom.

I guess I actually kind of feel like these lyrics are more meaningful, and better, than what ended up on the record. I don’t sense that as a disappointment to myself. I think I actually kind of feel happy that this exists, that there’s a document of my first thought of what this song could be. And I love that I can go back and listen to myself, and see what changes were made, and why. I think that helps me make better choices going forward writing songs.

But of course there’s no way of knowing who you’re going to be in 10 years. Or how personal certain things are going to feel. Certainly this song benefits, for me at least, from distance. And the amount of time that has maybe softened some of the sadness inherent in the words. So I don’t hear them as being morose, or as oversharing, or as overly detailed as I was fearful of at the time.

Aside from that, I’m getting packed and ready for Europe, where Wilco will be in a few days, and I’m excited about that. It’s been a while since we’ve been there. We’re going to some fun places. There are probably other things worth talking about, but I hope you enjoyed my dissection of this song.

OxO—Jeffy

1992 / August 3: The Uncle Tupelo album March 16-20, 1992 is released on Rockville Records.

2023 / August 4: Jeff shares an acoustic phone demo of “Evicted” from the forthcoming album Cousin on Starship Casual.

2025 / August 6: Jeff throws out the first pitch at PNC Park at the Pittsburgh Pirates game, where the message on the scoreboard celebrates Jeff and Susie’s 30^th anniversary.