Wilco’s ‘A Ghost Is Born’ Box Set Is Full of Surprises and Treasures

2004’s A Ghost Is Born has a key place in Wilco’s mythology. Recorded at a time of personal turmoil for singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy, it’s the first album they made after 2002’s era-defining, ante-upping Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, with all the expectations that came with that moment. For fans at the time, it felt like a chance to see if Wilco could sustain that high level of studio experimentation and emotional nuance.

We know now that they pulled it off. A Ghost Is Born wowed critics, won a Grammy, and remains among the most beloved entries in the band’s catalog. (Ask a true Tweedhead whether this one or YHF is better, and prepare for a long debate.) A new super-deluxe box set puts the album in a revealing new light, with dozens of outtakes and alternate versions drawn from the 2002-2003 sessions in Chicago and New York with co-producer Jim O’Rourke. There are tantalizing glimpses of roads not taken and instant-classic songs that even devoted fans have never heard before. 

Box sets like this are made for completists, and any Wilco completist will find plenty of incredible music to reward their time on this one. But let’s say you just tore open your copy of the nine-LP, four-CD set. Where to begin? We’re glad you asked. Here are seven highlights.

1. “Spiders (Kidsmoke) (February, 2002 SOMA-Chicago Version)”

A holy grail for fans of a certain ilk, this is a full studio recording of the original folk-rock arrangement of “Spiders,” the way it was performed on the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot tour in 2002. Over the next year-plus in the studio, Wilco would retool this song more dramatically than any other from these sessions, expanding its length to nearly 11 minutes and adding the chilly, mechanical synths heard on A Ghost Is Born. That version is monumental — but this one reminds you that one of Tweedy’s best-ever anthems of ambiguous ache was underneath it all along.

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2. “Improbable Germany (10/7/03, SOMA-Chicago Version)”

Years before it appeared as the majestic centerpiece of 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, “Impossible Germany” was a gentle acoustic ballad that Tweedy was still workshopping. This demo-like recording includes a lost opening verse that seems to take place on tour (“A peach-colored payphone in a bathroom in Munich/Is calling America selfishly”) and a slightly different title. Nels Cline wouldn’t join the band for a few more months, so his signature guitar solo doesn’t exist yet. Instead, the song builds to a softly strummed coda, with Tweedy singing, “This is what love is for.” You can hear how great the song already was in this form, and admire the instinct to let it keep brewing.

3. “Muzzle of Bees (7/16/03 SOMA-Chicago Version)”

On A Ghost Is Born, “Muzzle of Bees” is a quiet, subtle song that gradually reveals its magnetic pull. Wilco tried a few different ways of approaching it over the course of 2003, and each of the alternate takes on the box set is worth hearing. Perhaps the most surprising is this one, from July 16, where it’s transformed into an upbeat jam with a guitar part that’s reminiscent of “Tangled Up in Blue.” (The version from July 15, which features a more prominent piano part, is closer to the mood of the album take.)

4. “Diamond Claw (March, 2003 SOMA-Chicago Version)”

“‘Diamond Claw’ is one of my favorite unreleased tracks, and I still can’t understand why we didn’t pursue it a little further,” Tweedy recently wrote on his Starship Casual newsletter. “Maybe it was just a little too chipper, a little too bright, for the mood surrounding that album.” Fair enough, but it sure is a gem. There are a couple of versions on the box set. Start with this radiant full-band take, featuring a yearning lead vocal and a jaunty whistling solo. You’d know this song by heart if it had been released at the time.

5. “Leave Me (Like You Found Me) (6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago Version)”

Another Sky Blue Sky song that turns out to date back much earlier. In its final 2007 form, “Leave Me (Like You Found Me)” fits perfectly in a stretch of tightly arranged, lyrically direct songs. Here, it’s more diffuse, stretching out for more than seven spacey minutes. The open-ended mood recalls A Ghost Is Born tracks like “Wishful Thinking” and “Handshake Drugs” (which made its first appearance on the same studio day in 2002, as heard elsewhere on this set). It’s a fun “What if?” moment that makes the connections between the two albums more apparent.

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6. “Hummingbird (2/8/02 SOMA-Chicago Version)”

The version of “Hummingbird” on A Ghost Is Born is notable for its feeling of lighter-than-air joy. When they play it in concert now, it draws cheers from crowds that know they’re about to hear that jazzy melody. So it’s a mild shock to learn that “Hummingbird” once began with a pounding no-wave beat and a sense of claustrophobic foreboding. A fascinating look at how widely the explorations behind this album ranged.

7. “Fundamental 1”

Rumors of the free-form studio sessions that Wilco called “fundamentals” have been trickling out for years. “We would put on a reel of tape and record an entire album in the time it would take to listen to it,” Tweedy told me in 2020. “I would sit in an isolation booth and just flip through my notebook and make up songs based on random things, and everybody would play along, not having any idea what I was doing…Then we would listen through it once and mix it and put it away.” 

There are seven of ’em on this reissue, each one a grab-bag of breakthroughs and dead ends. This one includes a half-baked lament about sexual jealousy called “Millionaire” (“I wish I could fuck you like he thinks he does before he falls asleep”), an intermediate version of “Capitol City” (first attempted circa 1996 in the Being There sessions, but not nailed until 2011 on The Whole Love), a gorgeous rendition of “Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard,” and more. None of those songs made the final track list of A Ghost Is Born. By the end of the 30-minute session, though, Tweedy is sketching out the eerie tale that became “Hell Is Chrome,” a song you can’t imagine this album without.