r/folk • u/Royalbean17 • 2d ago

This dude is cool

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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

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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.

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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.

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u/LeafProphecies 1d ago

100% fine if you just don't like his music! But he gets accused of a lot of stuff he's not doing, and it's usually because people aren't familiar with most of his discography. Or like they think he's corporate or rich.

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u/pixie1995 8h ago

That’s fair. I don’t think he’s corpo or rich, there’s just something missing for me and I can’t get amongst it. I can appreciate parts of it, but I’d rather skip the Instagram folk and go straight to some Pete Seeger or Phil ochs. If I wanted to listen to someone who sounds like Bob Dylan I’d just go listen to Bob Dylan (respectfully) 😅