A Ghost Is Born [Deluxe Edition]

Twenty-plus years after its initial release—and commemorated here with a gargantuan 13-piece box set that exhaustively pieces together its rocky origins—it has never sounded so enduring.

Although Tweedy has repeatedly campaigned against the “myth” of the tortured artist, anyone looking to make a counter-argument need only point to A Ghost Is Born for proof—an argument only further bolstered by this exhaustive reissue. That most of the extras here gel into a cohesive listen is a hell of a triumph. That they entice enough for repeat listens is nothing short of a miracle.

You don’t need to know how many times and ways Wilco addressed these songs over two years to be dazzled and moved by the madrigal-guitar and astral-piano dance in Muzzle Of Bees, or the jaunty pop-psych bait of Handshake Drugs with its undercurrent of helplessness and allusion to Tweedy’s own battle with prescription medication (soon won through rehab). But it’s an instructive windfall in dedicated experiment and resolve. [Mar 2025, p.94]