Tracklist:

1. At Least Thats What You Said
2. Hell Is Chrome
3. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
4. Muzzle of Bees
5. Hummingbird
6. Handshake Drugs
7. Wishful Thinking
8. Company in My Back
9. Im a Wheel
10. Theologians
11. Less Than You Think
12. The Late Greats

A Ghost Is Born was released commercially on June 22, 2004, debuting at No. 8 on the Billboard chart. The album, which Mehr calls an eclectic array of dark ballads, upbeat pop songs, Krautrock chug, noise rock freakouts, and roots rock abandon, was widely acclaimed as one of 2004s best, appearing in year-end lists of Mojo, NPR, NME, the Associated Press, The Wire, Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, and Uncut, among many others. The album earned the band its first Grammy, for Best Alternative Music Album. The album also won a Grammy for Best Recording Package.

For the A Ghost Is Born recording, Wilco was Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Leroy Bach, Glenn Kotche, and Mikael Jorgensen; Jim ORourke, who mixed the bands previous release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, co-produced the album with Wilco. Leroy Bach left Wilco at the completion of the sessions and the band announced the addition of two new members: Pat Sansone and Nels Cline. Sansone and Cline toured with Wilco to promote A Ghost Is Born and that lineup has remained unchanged since 2004. As Tweedy said to Mehr for his new liner note, Making that record, and then finding this lineup, that was the start of something of having a band that can play anything. Thats why, 20 years later, were still here and still going.

Wilco first began sessions for what would become A Ghost Is Born in early 2002 at Chicagos Soma E.M.S., where they had mixed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Much of the album was tracked live in the studio with ORourke and engineer Chris Shaw. They also reunited there with engineer and soon-to-be-bandmate Mikael Jorgensen.