Songfacts®:

• This was the opening track on American alternative rock group Wilco's seventh studio album, Wilco (The Album).
• Wilco premiered this humorous, self-referential rocker in 2008 on The Colbert Report.
• This song features the chorus "Wilco will love you." Frontman Jeff Tweedy explained to Rolling Stone: "My records have loved me. Not my own records, but music. It's silly to say, but I think it's very real."
• Other artists who have penned songs sharing their moniker include Madness (whose "Madness" was the b-side of their debut single ("The Prince"), Motorhead (the title track and opener of their debut 1977 Motorhead album, S'Express (check out their UK #1 hit "Theme From S'Express") and, er, British pop group S Club 7 (well, "S Club Party" was a #2 hit in the UK in 1999!).
• Much of Wilco The Album was recorded in January 2009 in New Zealand after the majority of the band recorded with Kiwi Neil Finn for an Oxfam benefit album. They got such a great vibe from Finn's Roundhead studio in Auckland that they extended their stay in Auckland and continued to work there. The album was produced by the band and producer/engineer/mixer Jim Scott (he also served as the mixing engineer on Summerteeth, Sky Blue Sky and Being There) and additional sessions at the band's Chicago studio the Loft followed. Tweedy explained to Rolling Stone: "We wanted to use the studio more, to create more of an artifact than a document."
• The camel on the album sleeve is called Alfred. Tweedy explained why the band put a camel on the cover to The Independent newspaper December 11, 2009: "Originally, we thought of having a really old man having a birthday party but once we found the camel it became painfully obvious that the party should be for him. I wanted someone to look at the image and go, 'What the hell is that? How did that happen, and why wasn't I invited?'"
• Wilco (The Album) peaked at #4 in the US album charts, a career best for the band.
• There's a line in "Wilco (The Song)" where Jeff Tweedy offers a "cosmic shoulder to cry on." Uncut magazine asked him in a 2023 interview if he sees that as a continuing responsibility?
  
  "Yeah. I feel a responsibility to the community that has grown up around the band," he replied. "I mean. I know their names! There's a whole cadre of people that have followed us around for years. That's just the epidermis, there's a body of people that you can rely be assume radiate from that. I think it's a sweet responsibility. It's one I'm up for."