Wilco and the End of the World

Recently I have been listening to the new Wilco album (Wilco (The Album)), note here my expert use of nested parentheses.

I like Wilco, but I'm not fan of "poetry" qua poetry. I do love a turn of phrase or moving lyric. And while I recognize that Jeff Tweedy is a new poet laureate of alt rock, I try not to get too bogged down in the "poetry" of Wilco. They are a great band and put out some excellent music.

And Tweedy does have a gift with the lyric.

In one of the songs on the new album there's the lyric

"Come on children
you're acting like children.
Every generation
Thinks it's the end of the world"
-You Never Know

It's a great lyric because it just sort of comes out at you and makes you think. Especially since it's surrounded by some great music (Nels Cline is still on guitar on this album, so you know it's got some great guitar parts).

What I love about this lyric is that it does make me think. I think it is part of our human nature to think we are the ones who will be around when the party is finally over, when the lights go out.

I think back to my grandma who was born in 1901 and lived to the age of 94. Throughout much of the time I knew her she was convinced that the end times were upon us. But she was never morose about it. She was never a "downer" on the topic, it just was what it was. She seemed to be one of the more psychologically stable people in my family! Certainly the one everyone could get along with.

But I realized she spent a great portion of her life thinking she was among the last people. I think, in a sense, we all are prone to that. Hence the nice long list of apocalyptic thoughts from across the span of human history (A Brief History of the Apocalypse).

We are either prone to some sickened wishful thinking that we are the ultimate humans (in the sense of "last", not greatest necessarily) or some fear that we are somehow responsible for the last act. We are paying the bill set aside during our forebears time or we are the ones who "finally screwed it all up".

But possibly moreso, that we are going to see some fundamental change because everything has gotten so abhorrent.

Who knows what our collective consciousness is on this?

I know I'm prone to occasional bouts of "eschatology". I believe in global climate change and recognize there's a possibility we may be acting too slowly to make the necessary changes to save ourselves. I believe that we are at or near peak oil and may soon see our economic structures start to decay as we lose access to ever-increasing volumes of this cheap energy source. And I wonder if, indeed, we are seeing a massive turning point in how we will live, or at least how future generations will live.

I also recognize in myself this need for near constant "change". I grow bored with what is around. Wouldn't it be amazing if there was a "hard reset" to reality and we all had to start over or had to survive some new way? A great leveling of the playing field as the world is overturned for everyone?

In summation:

It's great when a lyric makes you think. And a well-crafted lyric in a great musical surround is thing of beauty. And this is a lyric that provides near endless opportunities for me think.