#423: Yo La Tengo, ‘I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One’
MATADOR, 1997
Hello, again! My goodness. It has been a while. I’ve been busy editing, fact checking and finally publishing this piece: They took part in Apache ceremonies. Their schools expelled them for satanic activities
It’s publication was very stressful not because I am worried about what the readers will think, but because I am terrified that the sources who trusted me with their stories will feel misrepresented. So, I isolate most of the week after a major story I write is published. I try to allow the story to go where it is supposed to go and respond to the folks.
I have received emails from people living on different reservations throughout the U.S. sharing how they relate to the article. But I still wake up in the middle of the night panicking that I missed something.
The prayer now is that white people (my people) respect the sovereignty of the Indigenous Nations throughout the country.
But back to music.
Yo La Tengo is a band founded by husband and wife, Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley. Each song they write is wrapped in cozy lyrics about the nuances of a relationship where two people actually like each other and want to stand next to one another as the world falls apart. Every song is not a love song, no. But every song is a testament that people can go through hard things and still remain worthy of trust.
There’s been a few band members come and go since its inception in 1984. But it was in 1992, that Hubley and Kaplan found bassist, James McNew.
He would be their “end all-be all-band member” who would join and remain an integral part of the music.
I don’t want to write about Ira and Georgia. They’re absolutely very cool, don’t get me wrong. And there is plenty about them out there. Right now, I am just more interested in James– the man in the background, the third wheel and the consistent supporter and artist in the shadow of the marriage of Yo La Tengo’s stars.
I was first introduced to James in the documentary, “The Parking Lot Movie”
The documentary was an ode to the underemployed worker treated horribly by customers. At one point a customer yells at the attendants about getting a real job or going to college. Ironically, the staff is littered with PhDs and Masters degrees.
Throughout the film, each employee held a quiet dignity. They didn’t need the customers to know that they were published poets or adjunct professors. They knew who they were and that was enough.
James McNew is in the movie was a former attendant of the parking lot. He tells a horrific story of a sorority girl refusing to pay her fee upon leaving. The whole thing is captivating and depressing.
He eventually left the parking lot and joined Yo La Tengo. He is not the star in the band but he understands the value of his position in the background. He is necessary. But not everyone is content in the shadows. Many bands have broken up because of ego. Examples that immediately come to mind include: Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, The Eagles, Guns & Roses, The Police.
In all the interviews I dug into, McNew never once speaks with frustration about the songs not being about him. He never once peacocks or centers himself in the conversations about the band. I do not sense a shred of insecurity within him.
On a more personal level, he also never talks about being on the outside of Hubley and Kaplan’s long-lasting marriage. McNew will never be, nor has he ever been, intimately involved in his bandmates’ romance but he knows the stories as well as a third wheel can.
Nick in The Great Gatsby was also involved in the intimacy of Gatsby and Daisy. He knew the depths but never touched them. He was involved but he was also distant. F. Scott Fitzgerald describes Nick’s situation by having him say, “I was within and without.”
James McNew is “within and without” the romance of Hubley and Kaplan. And his willingness to remain that third wheel grounds Yo La Tengo’s work so that we all can mirror McNew and also be “within and without” Hubley and Kaplan’s famous marriage.
A wonderful interview he did with a fellow Substacker, Tone Glow, is:
Do you mind sharing something you love about both Ira and Georgia?
Sure. I think they’re the two smartest people I’ve ever met. I think both of them—separately and together—are capable of anything. That came out as if I was accusing them of something (laughter) but that’s not how I meant it.
I didn’t take it that way! (laughter).
But they’re physically and mentally capable of achieving anything. I think they’re also the two most creative people I’ve ever met. It’s a pleasure to be in the room with them when we’re creating something. It’s hard to have perspective on it but (with a soft, warbling voice) I understand how much they love music, and they understand how much I love music. That is the first and strongest thing that brought us together—immediately.
There’s something deeply attractive about someone comfortable to take the backstage, knowing that the room in the back is just as vast as in the front.
As I get older and sidestep the regular markers of age (marriage, kids, job…yadda yadda), I find myself a third wheel to many of my friends. I am invited for the ride but I also know I am the first to be dropped off because the others are going to home together.
The third wheel is lonely, even though it is often essential. It is connected although it feels far away from the other two. To make peace with being “within and without,” is to crack the code of life. It is also what J.D. Salinger’s character Franny says in Franny & Zooey, “I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash."
But it’s in the “courage to be an absolute nobody,” that we enter into spaces of curiosity and learning. The star of the show doesn’t get to experiment as much. This is where we find our lives.
Even as a band, Yo La Tengo also leans into the third wheel way of life. They are almost notorious for parading as a cover band. They perform and record covers in a way that their listeners make it almost a game to guess what songs they will cover next.
Playing a song that was not written by yourself is the musical act of being “within and without.” You can create an intimacy within the song as you perform it but you will not really know it. You will always be on the outside of that song because you don’t know exactly what happened when each chord was chosen and each word was argued for the final recording. To sing a cover is to be okay with that small distance from the conception of that song, but to get as close as an outsider can be.
James McNew embodies this closeness and distance at the same time and he is also the kind of somebody I desperately want to be around more often. He is gentle and he is supportive and he is excited to be in the spaces, no matter how far he is from the spotlight.
Other cute things about James McNew:
This whole reddit Q&A https://www.reddit.com/r/indieheads/comments/10xw5z6/hello_its_james_mcnew_of_yo_la_tengo_ama/
This interview: https://www.houstonpress.com/music/inquiring-minds-a-lengthy-chat-with-yo-la-tengo-bassist-james-mcnew-6507534?showFullText=true
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Top songs: Damage, Deeper Into The Movies, Shadows, Stockholm Syndrome, Autumn Sweater, Green Arrow, One PM Again, Center of Gravity
Wow this is incredible! I got chills reading it. I’ve never read someone write about the 3rd wheel in this way
this is beautiful. i love yo la tengo. congrats on the publication!