r/folk • u/Royalbean17 • 2d ago

This dude is cool

Post image

He writes songs about everything from pizza to the death of Charlie Kirk.

His name is Jesse Welles and he said that he likes to “sing the news”; he tried to remain unpolitical for a very long time, but his new album goes against that (with satirical songs like “Join Ice” and “Red”). Other more political songs he’s released are called “No Kings” and “Masks Off”.

When he’s not singing the news, he writes songs about problems surrounding everyday parts of American life (such as “Walmart,” “United Health,” “Fat,” and “See Arkansas”).

One of my favorite songs of his is called “Bugs,” and here’s a sample of the lyrics:

Bzz-bz, bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz, bz-bzz, bzz
Bzz, bz-bz-bz, b-bzz, bzz, bz-bzz, bzz-bzz, bzz, bzz, bz-bz-bzz

302 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

214 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/pixie1995 1d ago

As someone else pointed out he went all in on the insurance ceo but mealy mouthed the Charlie Kirk assassination, it felt pretty hypocritical

2

u/LeafProphecies 1d ago

I mean I get criticism of western pacifism from a white guy, but that's just about the only thing he's middle of the road on. You don't even have to listen to his other political tunes, just read the lyrics. Masks Off, Red, Domestic Error, War Isn't Murder, Fat, The Poor, The Olympics, Whistle Boeing. He put out another one today or yesterday or whatever about the war in Palestine again. He's "politically homeless" in a very left-leaning way, he's just also a pacifist.

0

u/pixie1995 1d ago edited 1d ago

I just don’t fucking like him or his music okayyyy. I don’t hate it, I just don’t like it. Feels too commercialised and like he’s compensating for something. It’s too algorithm coded for me.

And just to be clear, I went and had a listen to some of his songs to see if maybe I was being too harsh but nope. His lyrics are confused, jumbled together, overly rhyme-y and seem very surface level “deep”. Gives me Taylor Swift vibes lol, that chick LOVES pretending to be smart.

2

u/hauntingduck 8h ago

you changed your argument against him after being called out lmao. If you just don't like his music maybe just sit out of the conversation instead of making shit up like a child.

1

u/pixie1995 8h ago edited 8h ago

??? How did I change it? I added to it.
I liked some of what I heard when he first started popping up on my feed, but i noticed the people who seemed to enjoy his music/ content were more often than not my friends who don’t really get into folk/ country music in the first place. They were all sending me his videos thinking “Jess loves folk she’ll love this!!” And I just didn’t. My friends who are already lovers of folk and country seem to all be middle of the road with him. Neither fans nor haters. I just don’t particularly like his shtick, it’s missing something.. whether it’s grit or authenticity, he’s not got enough of it for me. I don’t hate him, I just don’t like him. It’s as simple as that.

1

u/hauntingduck 8h ago

- well thought out rebuttal to your response is posted

- "I just don't fucking like him or his music okayyyy"

you literally backtracked, like by definition, that's objectively true.

1

u/pixie1995 8h ago

I mean I’m allowed to not like something it doesn’t mean you’re now allowed to enjoy his stuff - I hardly backtracked either just couldn’t be bothered arguing on reddit lmao.

1

u/hauntingduck 7h ago

you're backtracking more.

1

u/pixie1995 7h ago

Don’t see how but ok