Summerteeth - Production

Production

Wilco released Being There in 1996 to a higher level of commercial success than its debut album, A.M., selling 300,000 copies (nearly double the number of its first record). After the promotional tour to support Being There, Wilco began to record tracks for a third album. The initial Summerteeth recording sessions occurred in November 1997 at Willie Nelson's music studio in Spicewood, Texas. Lead singer Jeff Tweedy was particularly emotional during the sessions because he was upset that he was unable to spend time with his wife and son because of the constant touring schedule. As a result, the songs recorded reflected an introspective view that was also influenced by literature that Tweedy was reading at the time. While touring, Tweedy would read books by Henry Miller, William H. Gass, and John Fante. According to Tweedy:

I definitely wanted to get better at writing, and those things happened simultaneously with trying to read better. I would write tons of stuff in my head, and forget. Some songs on Being There, I don't think I ever wrote any lyrics down ... To fight that, I started writing words on paper and making up melodies to go with them. By writing things down, and putting more words into my head, it put more words in my mouth when I turned on the tape recorder to sing.

The sessions yielded a number of songs, including "I'm Always in Love", "She's a Jar", and the Henry Miller-inspired murder ballad "Via Chicago". Tweedy's relationship with his wife Sue Miller became the inspiration for several of the songs, although she was portrayed mostly in a negative sense. Miller was reluctantly willing to give Tweedy the creative license to write songs, but was concerned about lyrics such as "she begs me not to hit her" from "She's a Jar".

Before the album was completed, Wilco decided to collaborate with Billy Bragg on the album that would become Mermaid Avenue. Once the Mermaid Avenue sessions were completed, Wilco entered Chicago's Kingsize Soundlabs with engineers Dave Trumfio and Mike Hagler to finish Summerteeth. Tweedy and Bennett wanted to start the recording sessions over by experimenting with a new approach to mixing the songs. Unlike previous material, which was performed live in the studio, the pair heavily overdubbed many of the songs with Pro Tools. As a result, the contributions of other members were diminished. To complement the "bold, but depressing" lyrics, Tweedy relied more heavily on the production skills of multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett, who played a variety of instruments besides his usual lead guitar and keyboard work, including Mellotron, tambourine, synthesizers. Bennett even played the bass guitar and drums when bassist John Stirratt and drummer Ken Coomer were not in the studio. Coomer was not pleased about a reduced role in the band:

“

It was a circling of the wagons, and John and I felt left out. It was Jeff and Jay feeding off each other not just musically, but other vices. There was a bonding going on, and it didn't just involve music. Jeff didn't go into rehab, but he should've, in my opinion. Jay was taking painkillers, antidepressants, and wasn't in much better shape. The band was different. There wasn't really a band, just two guys losing their minds in the studio.

”

After a series of personnel changes, Reprise Records sought to release a hit single from the album to increase album sales. Wilco agreed to do this "once and once only" on the basis that they wanted to cooperate with the label that allowed them such freedom. The band and Reprise executives agreed to re-mix "Can't Stand It" to make it more radio-friendly. Within one day, the song was remixed into the version that appeared on Summerteeth, cutting out portions of the bridge and adding bells. "Can't Stand It" failed to cross over from Triple-A to modern rock radio stations.