Wilco’s ‘Ghost’ Reborn On Deluxe 20th Anniversary Reissue

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Wilco‘s 2004 project A Ghost Is Born, which won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album, has been beefed up with extensive archival material for a slightly belated 20th anniversary reissue, which will arrive Feb. 7 from Nonesuch. An early version of album track “Handshake Drugs,” recorded on Nov. 13, 2003, at Sear Sound in New York, is available to sample now.

Ghost comes in nine-CD or nine-LP/four-CD boxes, both of which include more than 40 previously unreleased demos, jams and alternate takes, as well as a complete show from Boston’s Wang Center on Oct. 1, 2004. Replacements biographer Bob Mehr contributed to an accompanying 48-page book.

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The follow-up to 2001’s troubled but acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Ghost was coproduced by the mercurial avant-gardist Jim O’Rourke and featured a lineup of vocalist/guitarist Jeff Tweedy, bassist John Stirratt, multi-instrumentalists Leroy Bach and Mikael Jorgensen and drummer Glenn Kotche. Bach exited after the sessions, with Pat Sansone and Nels Cline subsequently joining for a supporting tour. They’ve remained in the band ever since.

Several of the Ghost songs were the result of a process the band calls “fundamentals”: Tweedy played an acoustic guitar and sang random lyrics while the others listened in another room; the rest of the band then performed along with Tweedy while he remained in isolation (they could hear him, but he couldn’t hear them). These half-hour sessions were burned onto CDs; Tweedy would later listen to the discs at home and try to turn fragments into individual songs.

Fans can hear seven of those “fundamental” jams on the upcoming set, as well as numerous in-progress iterations of songs that eventually made the final cut. Also included are early versions of songs such as “Leave Me (Like You Found Me)” and “The Thanks I Get,” which weren’t officially released until several yers later.

“I was worried the album was going to feel like something dark and not me anymore,” Tweedy says in the liner notes, perhaps referencing his contemporaneous struggles with substance abuse that eventually necessitated a trip to rehab. “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.”

In June, the band performed Ghost in its entirety for the first time at their Solid Sound festival on the campus of MASS MoCA in Northampton, Ma. Although most of the songs are still regularly featured in Wilco’s set lists, several are rarely played, including closer “Less Than You Think” (to that point, three times since 2017) and “Wishful Thinking,” (seven since 2019).

This versatility first came to the forefront during the Ghost tour, and Tweedy told SPIN last year that it remains a crucial component of Wilco’s ethos. “Every day when we have a show on the road, we get together in a room about two hours beforehand and rehearse with just the bare minimum of gear,” he said. “It’s my favorite part of the day because Wilco’s able to play all of our material at a whisper volume and it still sounds like us. I sometimes wish people could file past and peek in the door, and that would just be the show. It’s really uniquely the essence of Wilco. These songs are being cared for and curated by a bunch of sensitive people that really love the task.”

Wilco will return to the road Dec. 5 in Austin for a short series of residencies. A European tour is also on tap for June 2025.

Here are the track lists for the bonus material on A Ghost Is Born (Deluxe Edition):

Outtakes/Alternates

At Least That’s What You Said (8/13/02 SOMA-Chicago)
Hell Is Chrome (5/10/03 SOMA-Chicago)
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (9/28/03 SOMA-Chicago)
Muzzle Of Bees (7/15/03 SOMA-Chicago)
Hummingbird (2/8/02 SOMA-Chicago)
Handshake Drugs (11/13/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
Wishful Thinking (1/11/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
Company In My Back (2/8/03 Hothouse-St. Kilda, Melbourne
I’m A Wheel (August, 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
Theologians (3/19/03 SOMA-Chicago)
Less Than You Think (11/11/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
The Late Greats (7/19/03 SOMA-Chicago)
Kicking Television (3/18/03 SOMA-Chicago)
The High Heat (2/5/02 SOMA-Chicago)
Panthers (March, 2003 SOMA-Chicago)
Diamond Claw (3/21/03 SOMA-Chicago)
Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard (June, 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
More Like The Moon (2/8/02 SOMA-Chicago)
Unlikely Germany (7/10/03 SOMA-Chicago)
Handshake Drugs (First Version – 6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago)
Hummingbird (February, 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
The High Heat (4/2/02 SOMA-Chicago) (3:04)
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (February, 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
Diamond Claw (March, 2003 SOMA-Chicago)
Muzzle Of Bees (October, 2003 Sear-NYC)
Like A Stone (10/11/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
Leave Me (Like You Found Me) (6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago)
Losing Interest (11/11/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
Old Maid (6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago)
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (August, 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
Panthers (October, 2003 Sear-NYC)
Muzzle Of Bees (7/16/03 SOMA-Chicago)
Diamond Claw (9/10/03 SOMA-Chicago)
Losing Interest (7/20/03 SOMA-Chicago)
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (October, 2003 SOMA-Chicago)
The Thanks I Get (6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago)
Two Hat Blues (March, 2003 SOMA-Chicago)
Improbable Germany (January, 2002 Pre-Production Loft session)

The Hook At The Wang (10/1/04 Wang Center-Boston, MA) 

Muzzle Of Bees
Company In My Back
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
A Shot In The Arm
Hell Is Chrome
Handshake Drugs
Jesus, Etc.
Hummingbird
I’m Always In Love
At Least That’s What You Said
Ashes Of American Flags
Theologians
I’m The Man Who Loves You
Poor Places
Spiders (Kidsmoke)
She’s A Jar
A Magazine Called Sunset
Kingpin
The Late Greats
I’m A Wheel
Via Chicago
California Stars
Christ For President