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Aug 11, 2020 By Jennifer Irving Jeff Tweedy

Last year, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy released his widely praised memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back). Now, he’s announced a follow up entitled How to Write One Song, aimed at, well, teaching aspiring musicians how to write a single song. How to Write One Song is due out October 13 via Dutton.

The new book does more than just give the technical, behind the scenes process of crafting a song. Tweedy also discusses fighting off self-doubt, building creative habits, and techniques to expand writing skills. The book also delves a little bit into memoir territory, explaining how Tweedy himself has used these practices to be successful.

In a press release, Tweedy says he chose just one song “because the difference between one song and many songs isn’t a cute semantic trick—it’s an important distinction that can simplify a notoriously confusing art form. By setting a goal of creating just one song from the ground up, the songwriting project becomes a focused, self-contained event, the mystery and fear subsides, and songwriting becomes an exciting pursuit.”

Tweedy recently collaborated with Mavis Staples on the new song “All In It Together” and also performed his own song “Evergreen” with his sons from his bathroom for Jimmy Kimmel Live!. It was from Tweedy’s 2019 solo album WARMER.

Wilco also put out a new album, Ode to Joy, last year via the band’s own dBpm label.

Read our interview with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy on Ode to Joy.

We previously posted our review of Ode to Joy and you can read that here.

Plus read our 2015 joint interview between Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Australian singer/songwriter/guitarist Courtney Barnett, from our Best of 2015 issue.

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