Let’s Go Rain – A short (true) Story About a Jeff Tweedy Poster

By The Silent P | October 1, 2018

There we were, listening to Jeff Tweedy perform a beautiful collection of his songs in Saxapahaw, North Carolina (worth a visit!) at Haw River Ball Room.

We were there in part, to sign the limited edition screen printed posters we had created for the event (you can scope that poster art out here). He starts to introduce a new song (always fun) by telling the audience that it is a sing-along – classic Tweedy humor, but it ends up that you CAN indeed sing along, and the audience loves it. It was during the line “Oh I should Build a wooden ark, Wouldn’t you rather live On an ocean of guitars!” that – as it sometimes happens – inspiration hit. I leaned over to Andy (Wilco and Jeff’s long time merchandise manager) and said “Oh man, THAT lyric would make for a fun poster!” He smiled back, and nodded in agreement, and I knew if Andy liked it, I was on to something.

I pitched the idea to band management, they then showed the thumbnail sketch to Jeff to get his approval (see the sketch below in the gallery) and hey, we were off and running.

As Rolling Stone states: “Let’s Go Rain is a Woody Guthrie-style anthem about Noah’s Ark; Tweedy calls for another purifying flood to cleanse the world of its current sins. “I’m always thinking about that story,” Tweedy says. “But this is more practical, like what the f*** was happening then that isn’t happening now? If you wanna get it on a theological level, how much worse can it have possibly been? I thought it was a funny musical question to ask in that way.” The song has become a live highlight, and will appear on WARM.”

Hope you guys enjoy seeing some of the creative process in the gallery below, we sure enjoyed getting to create a poster that started as an idea inspired by some pretty great Jeff Tweedy lyrics. Get your poster here, before they are all gone forever, just like those bad guys during the flood.

-The Silent P

Watch him perform the inspiring song here: