Johnny Cash, Wilco, The Ryman (Page 1 of 1)

There's that picture of Johnny Cash I love: He's leaning over his hip-hung guitar, his middle finger raised and close-up to the camera's focal point. He's biting his lower lip in preparation for the eruption of the consonant F that must have followed the flashbulb. Scrunch-faced, rebellious, angry: FFFF--- you!

It's such an archetypal image — Johnny Cash was born to say all the things our mothers taught us not to.  A college buddy of mine framed this picture and nailed it up over his toilet. We were fairly new to our own apartments and the public ability to buy beer. His was the pad we stumbled into to argue over a game of Beer Pong after Hawkeye's closed, to crank the stereo too loud for decent neighbors to tolerate, to fall asleep couch-sprawled against the bruising dawn as it peeked through the blind-drawn windows.

I can't count how many times I stood and looked at that picture — Johnny Cash, to hell with the world — and then crunched a High Life can or flipped a stub-end Winston butt into the swirling water.

We fell in love with American Recordings: "Delia, oh Delia, Delia all my life / If I hadn'ta shot poor Delia, I'da had her for my wife …”  We dressed in black and drank Jack Daniel's the night Johnny came to the Tennessee Theatre. His rock ‘n’ roll persona dragged me into his country music: This is the man who went to the Mother Church of Nashville recording, The Grand Ole Opry, and boot-stomped the footlights.

There's only been one other band in my adult life I've felt so connected to, so represented by, and that's Wilco. They don't have the lights-out, middle finger image of Cash, but I'm a little older now — a lot less bottled up with electric youth — so I don’t need those things to hook me. I'm attracted to Wilco's poetic lyrics and artistic ambiguity (not that Johnny's music doesn't match that description, too): "She's a jar, with a heavy lid, my pop quiz kid / a sleepy kisser, a pretty war, with feelings hid / you know she begs me not to hit her."

I like Wilco's albums because the narratives change for me depending on my mood or phase. A Ghost is Born rode in the floorboard of my truck for nearly a year after my first listen. Then one day I popped open the case, slipped in the CD and played nothing but that album for months. The third track "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" opens with these lyrics: "Spiders are singing in the salty breeze / spiders are filling out tax returns / spinning out webs of deductions and melodies / on a private beach in Michigan." Say what? Spiders doing taxes on a private beach in Michigan? I have no idea what it means — but I love this song.  It was my favorite of the album for a long time. And that gets to another reason I'm hooked on Wilco's music: Even though I've scoured a thousand times the landscape of these albums, I'm constantly stumbling across buried treasure in places I've already swung over. Of the 12 songs on A Ghost is Born, six have been my "favorite" at one time or another. "Theologians" (a song that contains perhaps the best line in all of music: "Hey, I'm a cherry ghost!") has taken on three different interpretations for me — all of which I'd bet are not close to the author's intention.

I have 4,569 songs on my iPOD, but 75 percent of what I listen to comes from Cash (especially the Rick Rubin productions) or Wilco. My buddy Brookshire prides himself on his vast music collection, and searching for a recommendation, he frequently asks me, "What are you listening to?  And don't say Wilco!"

All this to say, I was thrilled recently to drive to Nashville to see Wilco play at the Ryman — the theatre site of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974. The history of the building (all that musical DNA in the floorboard cracks of the stage: Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Dolly Parton, The Byrds, Lucinda Williams, John Prine… ), the ghost of Johnny kicking out the lights, and the presence of my favorite band — a blend as perfect as the Coen brothers turning a Cormac McCarthy novel into a movie.

I'm sure there's been a mountain of writing about the Ryman's church-like atmosphere, from the stained glass windows to the in-house pews, but I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention the physical appropriateness of the venue.  This is a sanctuary that's worth the three-hours-down, three-hours-back on-a-work-night drive.  The music here takes on an artistic spirituality that you can't get anywhere else.

Jeff Tweedy, Wilco's frontman, seemed to agree, as he twice said, "This really is the best place in the world to play."

And though no one from the band stomped on the footlights (I was a little disappointed), Wilco went strong and loud for nearly two-and-a-half hours.  They played 27 songs, and I know this because my friend 9-Bones, head-bobbing beside me, thumbed the playlist into his cell at the beginning of each one (the type of OCD behavior brought out in the truly inspired).

To open the first encore, Tweedy stepped to the stage solo and went acoustic.  The crowd alternated between hoots of excitement and schoolmarm shushing: "Whew!" followed immediately by "Shh!" The un-amplified sound was decent at best, but this was the Ryman, after all. It seemed like a fitting, preacher-esque nod.

When the house lights came up and the crowd began filing out, I was excited about being in the audience, about being a part of Wilco's addition to the history of the building. I hoped they were cooling off post-show in the Cash-Carter room backstage, looking at the live performance photos of Johnny hanging on the wall, wondering why that famous middle finger picture wasn't framed and hanging over the couch… or, even better, over the toilet.

* The views expressed in Commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Knoxville Voice.