Both this track and “I Am the Man Who Loves You” jumped out to me as being the radio-friendly hits from Wilco’s well-respected album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Though the album did go through a ton executive meddling that pushed back its initial release and forced it to be distributed on a completely label altogether, all of which was pleasantly documented, it could have been commercially represented by singles which I think would have been very popular. But what do I know?

“Heavy Metal Drummer” is one of the brighter, and lighter sounding tracks on the album. Faking you out with a boom-box drum beat for the first few seconds, the song suddenly bursts with a delightful piano line and brisk acoustic guitars amidst a general perky beat provided by drummer Glenn Kotche. The mix is then filled with bubbly synthesizers for the majority of the track as Jeff Tweedy recounts memories of the past from the heavy metal bands to personally playing Kiss covers whilst high.

You can’t help but feel the melancholic undertone when Tweedy sings “I miss the innocence I’ve known”. He yearns for the times when life wasn’t so hard and everything was alright. But the music’s uplifting and sometimes child-like playfulness overtakes that lingering sadness.