There is something profoundly moving about an Indian ascetic who has held his right arm raised for years, in devotion to Shiva and as a call for world peace.
For over 50 years, Amar Bharati, 75, has kept his arm aloft in an act of spiritual defiance. The man has now inspired one of the most intriguing tracks on Jeff Tweedy’s forthcoming triple album, Twilight Override, due for release on September 26.
“He put it up in 1973 and has lived his life that way ever since. I’m moved by Bharati’s protest,” Tweedy writes on his Substack. The song Amar Bharati sits on the third disc of this ambitious 30-track opus.
When one speaks of overrides, Tweedy said, in a recent New Yorker Radio Hour interview with Amanda Petrusich, “What am I overriding? I mean, twilight’s beautiful… but you need to override your fear of it… Creativity eats darkness.”
That’s a statement that crystallises the musician’s artistic philosophy.
It isn’t mere platitude from a veteran songwriter. It is hard-won wisdom from someone who has traversed the spectrum from alt-country pioneer to experimental auteur, from addiction to sobriety, from band conflict to family collaboration.
His journey began in the unlikely environs of Belleville, Illinois, where as a young man he discovered punk rock’s transformative power. His first major band, Uncle Tupelo, blended punk with blue-collar country music, drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as the hardcore-punk Minutemen and country legends The Carter Family and Hank Williams.
Uncle Tupelo’s 1990 debut No Depression laid the ground for what we now call alt-country, representing a rejection of Nashville’s slick commercialism in favour of music that honoured both tradition and rebellion.
When internal tensions fractured the band in 1994, Tweedy formed Wilco with remaining members that included bassist John Stirratt, drummer Ken Coomer and multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston. (The name was an ironic nod to military shorthand, in which Wilco is “Will comply”.)
By 2002, with the album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco had taken a quantum leap. The album’s origin story became legend too: Reprise Records’ rejection, subsequent free streaming, eventual critical triumph. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of the Aughts, establishing the band as fearless sonic explorers.
Subsequent albums such as A Ghost Is Born (2004), Sky Blue Sky (2007) and The Whole Love (2011) found the band cycling through various incarnations while maintaining their core identity. Each record revealed new facets of Tweedy’s songwriting: sometimes tender, sometimes abrasive, always searching.
His solo career, beginning with 2014’s Sukierae (recorded with his drummer son Spencer Tweedy), has allowed for more-intimate expression. Subsequent solo albums such as Together at Last (2017), Warm (2018) and Love Is the King (2020) each explore different emotional territories while maintaining a gift for melody and introspection.
The collaboration with his sons has evolved beautifully. Spencer, now an accomplished drummer and songwriter, appears on Twilight Override alongside younger brother Sammy Tweedy. With appearances by fellow Chicago-based musicians, Twilight Override is centred on themes of time, ageing, fear, and “making peace with something ending”.
In the New Yorker radio interview, Tweedy, now 58, describes the record as “whittled down” from five albums’ worth of material. This abundance speaks to a creative restlessness that shows no signs of abating.
Six songs are currently available on streaming platforms, ahead of the album’s release. Five of these were released when the album was announced on July 15, and showcase the range represented across the triple album’s three distinct chapters. The sixth, Feel Free, was subsequently released with an accompanying performance video.
In an era of playlist culture and shortened attention spans, Twilight Override’s three-disc ambition feels almost anachronistic. Yet Tweedy’s track record suggests this isn’t self-indulgence but natural evolution. “Twilight Override is my effort to overwhelm it right back,” he says, of the darkness he perceives in contemporary life. “Here are the songs and sounds and voices and guitars and words that are an effort to let go of some of the heaviness and up the wattage on my own light.”
Not unlike Amar Bharati’s raised arm, this is a sustained gesture of defiance.
As September 26 approaches, Twilight Override promises to be Tweedy’s most comprehensive statement yet. In our fractured moment, his insistence that “creativity eats darkness” feels less like wishful thinking and more like urgent necessity.
(To write in with feedback, email sanjoy.narayan@gmail.com. The views expressed are personal)
