I've always considered "Reconstruction Site" (the album "One Great City" is on) to be their best and most accessible, closely followed by "Reunion Tour." But there are plenty of gems on their first two albums as well!
left and leaving is where I started and is also coincidentally the best album of all time, so imo start there
yeah, Left and Leaving > Reconstruction Site > Reunion Tour > Winter Wheat, then go back and check Fallow, would be my suggested order
Reconstruction Site is a masterwork, Left and Leaving and Reunion Tour are excellent for stretches as well. High points of their discography for me include “Left and Leaving”, “Reconstruction Site”, “Benediction”, “Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure”, “Civil Twilight”, “Night Windows”, “This Is A Fire Door Never Leave Open”, “Pamphleteer”, and “Elegy for Elsabet”. Fucking hell he’s a strong songwriter
Winter Wheat needed to be shaved down a little bit. Left and Leaving the song is astoundingly good. The album too but especially the song.
Thing is for YEARS people told me left and leaving was their most accessible and that's where I should start. I was never hooked by L&L so never got into the band. Then I decided to try Reconstruction Site and it immediately clicked. Definitely RS is the most accessible. Just catchier and less busy than L&L, though I love L&L now that I got into the band.
It’s here in the smallest bones. The feet and the inner ear. It’s such an enormous thing to walk and to listen.
I would strongly argue against this. Not only does it encapsulate most of what he had worked on in the time since the first debut, but thematically it's all linked, even if some songs arent as good as others.
Ya Left & Leaving is where I started, specifically after listening to TWYs cover of “Aside” and immediately fell in love with John Ks songwriting
yeah John K's lyrics are, to me, some of the best if not the best of the genre. One line I think is absolutely incredible is this one on Winter Wheat, for its visual quality : "So make a visor with your hands/squint to where you're from/a lonely line of buildings you can block out with your thumb/salute the way we tried" It takes into account the progression of an actual gesture, and instills meaning into it : the visor-hand turning into the visually similar salute. I'm not explaining this very well, but it makes me think of poetry in Sign Language. Some signed poetry reposes on sign play: similar-looking/similarly-placed signs that can be fluidly integrated or moved into each other to form a sort of word-play. This line feels like that.
How random was it that Aside played over the closing credits to Wedding Crashers Best solo track John K has done to this point is Requests, song floors me
repeating myself itt but this is one of the greatest songs ever, if not the greatest. the fact that this, "Fire Door" and "Everything Must Go" are on the same album... unbelievable
John has lots of great solo work, but “When I Write My Master’s Thesis” is still my favorite. It rocks like the best Weakerthans songs and the way it plays with the form of Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece” is so cool. I also love how “Heart of the Continent” works as an update of “One Great City!” I just really love Provincial.
Trying to decide what I think is john’s best lyrical work. Probably fire door or left and leaving. Interested in other opinions tho
My Favourite Chords means the most to me but Fire Door, Without Mythologies, ...Explains Her Departure and Hospital Vespers are all runners up
I recently moved out of my childhood home and man some of these songs kill me now and perfectly capture how I feel.
My favorite John K. lyric changes all the time, but right now it's this one from "A New Name For Everything." When the one-ways collude with the map that you folded wrong And the route you abandoned is always the path that you probably should be upon When the bottle cap ashtrays and intimates' ears are all full With results of your breath, and the threads of your fear are unfurled with the tiniest pull One more time, try Stand with your hands in your pockets and stare At the smudge on a newspaper sky And ask it to rain a new name for everything And this part of "Fire Door" is perfect: I still hear trains at night when the wind is right I remember everything Lick and thread this string That will never mend you or tailor more Than a memory of a kitchen floor Or the fire door that we kept propping open And I love this place: the enormous sky And the faces, hands that I'm haunted by So why can't I forgive these buildings These frameworks labeled home?