Chit-Chat Check-In #104 Transcript

Jeff: Hello, this is your Captain speaking on a post-Wilco Winterlude trip with my beloved wife, Susie.

Susie: Hiiii!

Jeff: We're in an undisclosed location, visiting a friend who's in a play.

Susie: Jeff's not wearing pants.

Jeff: That's irrelevant. I'm not naked. I'm just wearing shorts. Underwear. We should start over.

Susie: [laughs]

Jeff: They don't mind. They've heard me in my underwear before.

So, the song I wanted to share this week is a song that I recorded with Wilco for Cousin, but it didn't make the cut, and one of the reasons that it didn't make the cut is because the subject matter was very sensitive to Susie, and we were very concerned about her father hearing this song, and being derailed emotionally by the lyrics.

It's a song called "Judy (Ball of Light)." I'm going to include the original iPhone demo of the song. The song is about a specific interaction that Susie's father had with Susie's mother after they had been divorced for 30 years, probably. Susie's mother was living in our house, in hospice, about to die from lung cancer. And Peter, Susie's dad, came to visit. I think he came to visit more than once, but this was his last visit to see Judy.

Susie: He came every day.

Jeff: He did? He came every day. And they had very intense conversations, according to Peter. I don't know if we witnessed those. Lots of asking for forgiveness, and reconciliation of some sort, at least according to your dad.

Susie: They were getting close again.

Jeff: It's very sweet. One thing you should know about Susie's parents--when they split up, Susie was a teenage girl, and it was a very devastating moment. It's really tragic, it's a tragedy. I;m sure most divorces with kids are tragic, but this particularly seems to be a tragic moment for your entire family. But when you just look at it as a romance, as a love affair between two people, it has elements of star-crossed lovers. It should have worked, but it didn't work. Or it was never going to work. I don't know.

But the point is, I don't think Peter ever got over Judy.

Susie: No, he did not.

Jeff: It always struck me as tragic. I was always struck by the intensity of their relationship, even apart from each other, and how it affected you and your brothers. The idea of them even being in the same room with each other was intense. The idea of them getting back together, as your father maybe suggested was possible ... and we all kind of knew that it wasn't possible.

Susie: I thought it was possible.

Jeff: Oh, you did?

Susie: I thought they were going in that that direction when she died

Jeff: Aww... well, one of the more poignant things I've ever heard in my life regarding the interactions of someone with a loved one on a deathbed is when your father came to visit your mother, and she was barely speaking anymore. She kept pointing to something in the room, on the wall.

Susie: It was, like, on the ceiling.

Jeff: On the ceiling. I don't know if I have that in the lyrics exactly right. But Peter went and got it. It was invisible, but he went and said, "Is this it?" and brought it to her.

Susie: Yeah. He scooped up air, and brought it to her.

Jeff: I always thought of it as a ball of light, which is why the song is called "Judy (Ball of Light)."

Susie: And he gave it to her. And she never spoke again after that.

Jeff: Never spoke again. And it's very sad, but it's also very beautiful. Do you find it comforting at all that they had that moment of deep connection?

Susie: Yeah. She was kind of agitated--she kept pointing and pointing at that one spot, up at the top of the wall ...

Jeff: Nobody else could really figure out what it was.

Susie: When he brought it to her, she was satisfied. And then she didn't talk again.

Jeff: Yeah. I don't have any ... all I know is that it moved me enough to write a song. I don't know if the song captures that--I tried to capture not just that moment, but the beauty of your mom and dad's love for each other. And I remember playing it for you. We were at the kitchen table, and I think I was asking if I could play it on The Tweedy Show. And you said no, because your dad would tune into The Tweedy Show every night. I think you were sort of upset with me. And I never thought about releasing it again, because your dad was alive, and it was so upsetting to you that it didn't feel right. But now that your dad has passed, I wanted to ask you if it was OK ...

Susie: I wasn't upset with you, I just didn't want to upset my dad.

Jeff: Exactly. I know ....

Susie: You just said that you thought I was upset with you, but I wasn't.

Jeff: No, I just meant it upset you. If I said you were upset with me, that's not what I mean. I just mean that it was upsetting. And I did feel bad, because it made you cry. It made you really upset. And I felt like ... that wasn't what I was...

Susie: Really? I don't even remember that.

Jeff: I wasn't aiming for that. I wasn't aiming to upset you. I wanted to ...

Susie: When was that?

Jeff: It was during The Tweedy Show era.

Susie: Sheesh, I don't even remember that. But when I listened to it the other day, I cried.

Jeff: Yeah. And you're OK with me sharing it?

Susie: Yeah. I just didn't want to hurt my dad

Jeff: I understand that. I tried to understand it then, but--I trusted you. And as I spent more and more time with your father in the last few years ... I was always close to your dad, but I feel like we all spent a lot of time talking to him, and talking through a lot of the things that he was obsessing about at the end of his life in terms of some sadness that he had, and regrets, and things like that. I really came to understand how deeply ... I guess I came to understand how absolutely right you were about not putting that into the universe for your dad to hear. At all.

Susie: Yeah.

Jeff: So ... you alright, honey?

Susie: Yeah.

Jeff: Well, thank you for letting me share it. It's a pretty intense backstory. And to me, that's one of the things that the Substack is for. It's almost like the kind of song that you would just stick on a record and not have any background at all.

I don't know--a song should be able to live on its own. I think it does, and it would. It would hopefully be pretty or meaningful without some connection to the story for the listener. But I think that's one of the beautiful things about the Substack--you can present a song, you can present something that's really personal, and take advantage of this format to have some, I don't know, just a deeper connection.

Anyway, I hope everybody's well. I hope this song finds you in a mood open to hearing it, and isn't too sad. And Happy holidays to everybody. It's a lonely time of year for a lot of people. So check on your people, check on yourself, and thank you for listening.

Do you have anything else to say, honey? Besides that I'm in my underwear?

Susie: [Laughs] Bye, everyone.

Jeff: Carry on.