This 11-LP + 1 CD Super Deluxe Edition of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco's 2002 Nonesuch debut, comprises the original album, remastered for it's 20th anniversary in 2022, plus 84 previously unreleased tracks. Includes demos, drafts, and instrumentals, charting the making of the album; a live 2002 concert recording; and a September 2001 radio performance and interview. The box set also includes a new book featuring an interview with Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, and Jim O'Rourke; an in-depth essay by journalist/author Bob Mehr; and previously unseen photos of the band making the album in their Chicago studio.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was widely acclaimed as one of 2002's best albums, appearing in year-end lists of Mojo, NME, Q, Rolling Stone, and Uncut, among many others. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot also was featured in multiple decade-end lists, with Rolling Stone naming it #3 Album of the 2000s, as well as many Greatest Albums of All Time lists, including in the NME. Among Yankee's inspirations was a recording Tweedy bought at Tower Records in the late 1990s, The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations. As Bob Mehr points out in his new album note, the record got "deep under Tweedy's skin.
Tweedy said in his 2017 memoir, Let's Go (So We Can Get Back), "It was as fascinating to me as anything being made by actual musicians using actual instruments... I wanted to know why it was so hypnotic to me. Why could I listen to hours of this stuff, even though I had no clue what any of them were saying. That question became the foundation for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot... The way people communicated or ultimately failed to communicate."
The album takes it's title from a haunting recording of a woman repeating those words that is included in The Conet Project; that recording is sampled in the penultimate song on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, "Poor Places." Conceptually, Tweedy had decided to focus on a big idea for the next album: the state of America. His lyrics-often distilled from scribbled pages of free verse or poetry-became a form of inquiry," Mehr continues. Tweedy said, in 2004, "I wanted to write about the stuff right in front of my eyes, microscopically looking at America and asking questions about each little thing... How can there be all these good things and things that I love about America, alongside all of these things that I'm ashamed of? And that was an internal question, too; I think I felt that way about myself." Mehr says, "Exploring those questions, while weaving in strands of Eastern philosophy and bits of autobiography-Yankee lyrics would be loaded with the pained imagery of someone suffering from migraines and mental health issues-Tweedy would conjure a deep examination of both country and self."
Describing the uncanny, strangely prescient feeling of the album, which Wilco began offering as a free stream on it's website in 2001, Mehr notes: "In the wake of 9/11, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot would be burdened with unintended meaning. The disc had originally been scheduled for a September 11 release. It's cover-a Sam Jones-shot image of Chicago's twin Marina Towers angled in looming fashion-bore an eerie resemblance to the felled World Trade Center towers. And the songs-with titles like 'Ashes of American Flags' and 'War on War,' and lyrics about how 'tall buildings shake, sad voices escape'-took on a terrible new resonance.
Tracklist
Side A
1 I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (2022 Remaster)
2 Kamera (2022 Remaster)
3 Radio Cure (2022 Remaster)
Side B
1 War on War (2022 Remaster)
2 Jesus, Etc. (2022 Remaster)
3 Ashes of American Flags (2022 Remaster)
Side C
1 Heavy Metal Drummer (2022 Remaster)
2 I'm the Man Who Loves You (2022 Remaster)
3 Pot Kettle Black (2022 Remaster)
Side D
1 Poor Places (2022 Remaster)
2 Reservations (2022 Remaster)
Side E
1 Anniversary (Nothing Up My Sleeve) [American Aquarium Version]
2 Venus Stopped the Train (American Aquarium Version)
3 Poor Places (American Aquarium Version 1)
4 I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (American Aquarium Version)
Side F
1 American Aquarium
2 Cars Can't Escape (American Aquarium Version)
3 Kamera (American Aquarium Version)
4 War on War (American Aquarium Version)
5 I'm the Man Who Loves You (American Aquarium Version)
Side G
1 Ashes of American Flags (American Aquarium Version)
2 Not for the Season (Laminated Cat) [American Aquarium Version]
3 Shakin' Sugar (American Aquarium Version)
4 Let Me Come Home (American Aquarium Version)
5 Poor Places (American Aquarium Version 2)
Side H
1 Reservations (American Aquarium Version)
2 Not for the Season (Laminated Cat) [Here Comes Everybody Version]
3 Remember to Remember (Hummingbird) (Here Comes Everybody Version)
4 I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (Here Comes Everybody Version)
5 Kamera (Here Comes Everybody Version)
Side I
1 01 Radio Cure (Here Comes Everybody Version)
2 War on War (Here Comes Everybody Version)
3 Venus Stopped the Train (Here Comes Everybody Version)
4 I'm the Man Who Loves You (Here Comes Everybody Version)
5 The Good Part (Here Comes Everybody Version)
Side J
1 Pot Kettle Black (Here Comes Everybody Version)
2 Ashes of American Flags (Here Comes Everybody Version)
3 Poor Places (Here Comes Everybody Version)
4 Shakin' Sugar (Here Comes Everybody Version)
5 Reservations (Here Comes Everybody Version)
Side K
1 Cars Can't Escape (Here Comes Everybody Version)
2 A Magazine Called Sunset (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
3 Remember to Remember (Hummingbird) [The Unified Theory of Everything Version]
4 I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
Side L
1 01 Kamera (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
2 Radio Cure (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
3 War on War (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
4 Jesus, Etc. (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
Side M
1 Ashes of American Flags (Stravinsky Mix)
2 Heavy Metal Drummer (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
3 I'm the Man Who Loves You (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
4 Pot Kettle Black (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
5 Poor Places (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
Side N
1 Reservations (The Unified Theory of Everything Version)
2 Love Will (Let You Down) [Lonely in the Deep End Version]
3 Lost Poem Demo (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
4 I'm the Only One Who Lets Her Down (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
5 Has Anybody Seen My Pencil? (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
Side O
1 The Good Part (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
2 A Magazine Called Sunset (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
3 A Magazine Called Sunset (Backing Track) [Lonely in the Deep End Version]
4 Anniversary (Nothing Up My Sleeve) (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
5 Kamera (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
Side P
1 I'm the Man Who Loves You (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
2 I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
3 Jesus, Etc. (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
4 Reservations (Backing Track) [Lonely in the Deep End Version]
5 Let Me Come Home (Synth) [Lonely in the Deep End Version]
6 Ooby Dooby (Lonely in the Deep End Version)
Side Q
1 I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
2 I'm the Man Who Loves You (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
3 War on War (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
4 Kamera (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
Side R
1 Radio Cure (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
2 A Shot in the Arm (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
3 She's a Jar (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
Side S
1 I'm Always in Love (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
2 Sunken Treasure (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
3 Jesus, Etc. (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
4 Heavy Metal Drummer (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
Side T
1 Pot Kettle Black (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
2 Ashes of American Flags (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
3 Not for the Season (Laminated Cat) [Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02]
Side U
1 Reservations (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
2 California Stars (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
3 Red-Eyed and Blue (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
4 I Got You (At the End of the Century) [Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02]
Side V
1 Misunderstood (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
2 Far, Far Away (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
3 Outtasite (Outta Mind) [Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02]
4 I'm a Wheel (Live at the Pageant, St. Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
CD Tracklist
1 Interview, Pt. 1
2 War on War (Live in Studio)
3 Interview, Pt. 2
4 Interview, Pt. 3
5 I'm the Man Who Loves You (Live in Studio)
6 Interview, Pt. 4
7 Should've Been in Love (Live in Studio)
8 Interview, Pt. 5
9 She's a Jar (Live in Studio)
10 Interview, Pt. 6
11 Ashes of American Flags (Live in Studio). Louis, Mo 7/23/02)
