Limited 20th Anniversary Expanded Edition featuring the original album plus 1 CD of alternates, outtakes & demos.
For the A Ghost Is Born recording, Wilco was Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Leroy Bach, Glenn Kotche, and Mikael Jorgensen; Jim O’Rourke, who mixed the band’s previous release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, co-produced the album with Wilco. Leroy Bach left Wilco at the completion of the sessions and the band announced the addition of two new members: Pat Sansone and Nels Cline. Sansone and Cline toured with Wilco to promote A Ghost Is Born and that lineup has remained unchanged since 2004. As Tweedy said to Mehr for his new liner note, “Making that record, and then finding this lineup, that was the start of something – of having a band that can play anything. That’s why, 20 years later, we’re still here and still going.”
Wilco first began sessions for what would become A Ghost Is Born in early 2002 at Chicago’s Soma E.M.S., where they had mixed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Much of the album was tracked live in the studio with O’Rourke and engineer Chris Shaw. They also reunited there with engineer and soon-to-be-bandmate Mikael Jorgensen.
At Soma, the band began sketching out music using Tweedy’s notebooks of lyrics, poetry, and prose. Mehr notes: ‘In between more traditional song tracking, the group would engage in a series of conceptual improvisations in the studio. These musical experiments, broadly known as Fundamentals… were part of what Kotche said was ‘an attempt to search for a new group identity. To see what we could make this band into.’’
In the fall of 2003, the band relocated to New York to finish recording at Sear Sound. “It seemed like the band needed to get out of Chicago, get out of the working mode they’d been in, and only be thinking about making a record,” O’Rourke told Mehr. There, playing together in the corner of a large studio, the album began to take its final shape.
Emerging from a period of addiction and rehab, Tweedy discussed how he feels about A Ghost Is Born in retrospect. As he told Mehr, “I was worried the album was going to feel like something dark and not me anymore. But the album was ahead of me as a person. It was the part of me that I was trying to preserve – enthusiastic and furious about the world, as well as open and loving. I reached that in the music, before I could get there emotionally on my own.”
Tracklist:
Disc 1
1 At Least That's What You Said
2 Hell Is Chrome
3 Spiders (Kidsmoke)
4 Muzzle of Bees
5 Hummingbird
6 Handshake Drugs
7 Wishful Thinking
8 Company in My Back
9 I'm a Wheel
10 Theologians
11 Less Than You Think
12 The Late Greats
Disc 2
Outtakes/Alternates
1 At Least That's What You Said (8/13/02 SOMA-Chicago Version)
2 Hell Is Chrome (10/5/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)
3 Spiders (Kidsmoke) [9/28/03 SOMA-Chicago Version]
4 Muzzle Of Bees (7/15/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)
5 Hummingbird (2/8/02 SOMA-Chicago Version)
6 Handshake Drugs (11/13/03 Sear Sound-NYC Version)
7 Wishful Thinking (11/1/03 Sear Sound-NYC Version)
8 Company In My Back (2/8/03 Hothouse-St. Kilda, Melbourne Version)
9 I'm A Wheel (August 2002 SOMA-Chicago Version)
10 Theologians (3/19/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)
11 Less Than You Think (11/11/03 Sear Sound-NYC Version)
12 The Late Greats (7/19/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)
13 Kicking Television (3/18/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)
14 The High Heat (2/5/02 SOMA-Chicago Version)
15 Panthers (March 2003 SOMA-Chicago Version)
16 Diamond Claw (3/21/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)
17 Bob Dylan's 49th Beard (June 2002 SOMA-Chicago Version)
18 More Like The Moon (2/8/02 SOMA-Chicago Version)
19 Improbable Germany (10/7/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)
Disc 3
Outtakes/Alternates
1 Handshake Drugs (First Version, 6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago Version)
2 Hummingbird (February 2002 SOMA-Chicago Version)
3 The High Heat (2/4/02 SOMA-Chicago Version)
4 Spiders (Kidsmoke) [February 2002 SOMA-Chicago Version]
5 Diamond Claw (March 2003 SOMA-Chicago Version)
6 Muzzle Of Bees (October 2003 Sear Sound-NYC Version)
7 Like A Stone (11/10/03 Sear Sound-NYC Version)
8 Leave Me (Like You Found Me) [6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago Version]
9 Losing Interest (11/11/03 Sear Sound-NYC Version)
10 Old Maid (6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago Version)
11 Spiders (Kidsmoke) [August 2002 SOMA-Chicago Version]
12 Panthers (October 2003 Sear Sound-NYC Version)
13 Muzzle Of Bees (7/16/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)
14 Diamond Claw (10/9/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)
15 Losing Interest (7/20/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)
16 Spiders (Kidsmoke) [October, 2003 SOMA-Chicago Version]
17 The Thanks I Get (6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago Version)
18 Two Hat Blues (March 2003 SOMA-Chicago Version)
19 Improbable Germany (January 2002 The Loft-Chicago Version)
Disc 4
The Hook At The Wang (10/1/04 Wang Center-Boston, MA)
1 Muzzle Of Bees (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
2 Company In My Back (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
3 I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
4 A Shot In The Arm (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
5 Hell Is Chrome (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
6 Handshake Drugs (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
7 Jesus, Etc. (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
8 Hummingbird (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
9 I'm Always In Love (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
10 At Least That's What You Said (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
11 Ashes Of American Flags (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
12 Theologians (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
Disc 5
The Hook At The Wang (10/1/04 Wang Center-Boston, MA)
1 I'm The Man Who Loves You (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
2 Poor Places (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
3 Spiders (Kidsmoke) [Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04]
4 She's A Jar (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
5 A Magazine Called Sunset (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
6 Kingpin (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
7 The Late Greats (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
8 I'm A Wheel (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
9 Via Chicago (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
10 California Stars (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
11 Christ For President (Live at the Wang Center, Boston, MA 10/1/04)
Disc 6
1 Fundamental 1
2 Fundamental 2
Disc 7
1 Fundamental 3
2 Fundamental 4
Disc 8
1 Fundamental 5
2 Fundamental 6
Disc: 9
1 Fundamental 7
A Ghost is Born (20th Anniversary) (Deluxe Edition) (9CD Box Set) has a scheduled release date of .
In the event of any delays to this date we will keep this page updated and email any pre-order customers.