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About

Genius Annotation

The third track on Wilco’s sixth LP
Sky Blue Sky, their first album with multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone and guitar player Nels Cline. Cline features heavily on this song.

Wilco later released “Unlikely Japan,” an alternate version of the song with slightly different lyrics.

Rolling Stone’s review of Sky Blue Sky opens with:

Have Wilco ever come up with a better song than ‘Impossible Germany’? For the first three minutes, it’s a mysterious soft-rock ballad with jazzy chords filtered through stoner-country guitar licks, like some lost outtake from Steely Dan’s Katy Lied. Jeff Tweedy mumbles about isolation in his most beaten-up-by-life voice. Then, in the final three minutes, it builds into a twin-guitar epic, with Tweedy in the left speaker reinventing Fleetwood Mac circa Bare Trees, and Nels Cline in the right speaker reinventing Television circa Adventure. There’s no noise, none of the spazzed-out distortion of the last few Wilco records: It’s peaceful on the surface, demented underneath. After a hundred listens or so, you start to notice that even the lyrics, not always a Wilco specialty, are pretty excellent. Even if mellowed-out guitar jammery isn’t your cup of tea, respect is due — this is the kind of song nobody ever gets right.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Credits
Produced By
Guitar Solo
Mastering Engineer
Mixing Engineer
Recording Engineer
Assistant Recording Engineer
Percussion
Hammond A100 Organ
Release Date
May 15, 2007
Impossible Germany Live Performances
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