Wiki
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Length
4:08
Once referred to as an “ultimate crowd pleaser” in Wilco’s live repertoire, this is the seventh track on “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot“ and second single to be released from the album.
Jeff Tweedy has described the song as being about “the sweet yearning for an innocence that has passed”.
"People always get confused about “Heavy Metal Drummer” because they think I was the drummer in a band that covered Kiss songs. That song is really just another reminder about not being judgmental and reductive. There were many, many nights in St. Louis where me and my friends would go see some punk band, and then we’d all go to the landing on the Mississippi River, because the bars on the landing had a 4 A.M. liquor license.
And all us punk guys would sit there and scoff and feel superior to all the heavy-metal bar bands with the big hear and the Spandex, most of whom were having the fucking time of their fucking life. So who was losing? Me. Those guys were getting laid, they were deluding themselves into thinking they were gonna be huge stars, and they were living. And I was dead. I was staring into my drink."
– Jeff Tweedy, via SPIN
"I worry that people look at that song as too sentimental, very nostalgic. But I guess that’s what it is. The assumption I’ve heard a lot of people make is that I was the one playing Kiss covers – I wasn’t. I’m talking about that band that I can’t find anymore, that I wish I could, because now I would feel less superior to them, and be able to enjoy them more."
—Jeff Tweedy, via Rolling Stone
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