Patriotic Songs for a Cruel Country
The nation has selected a new musical champion, and he sings with a twang. This week, American Idol crowned Noah Thompson, a scruffy-goateed 20-year-old construction worker from Kentucky, as its 20th season’s winner. On his debut single, “One Day Tonight,” Thompson imagines giving a girlfriend all that she pines for: a diamond ring, a fixer-upper in Denver, a honeymoon in Vegas. He’s singing about love—but also about America, where dreams and destinations glitter like baubles in a shop.
Familiar tunes, familiar desires, familiar terrain: This is the or, perform a similar feat to Thompson’s in cleverly redrawing a map of places and feelings that the listener, intrinsically, knows. (On Miranda Lambert’s mischievous new album, for example, reworks Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” with the name “Geraldene.”) This week brings a strange and wonderful entry into that tradition with , Wilco’s 12th album.
