Jesse Welles didn’t start showing up on your social media feeds because of a dance challenge or any particular trend—he did it by being honest. “Punching up” is truly the name of the game with the Ozark-born singer-songwriter, experiencing his most serious windfall in addressing many of the current moments’ biggest headlines and ills in his signature biting fashion.
In an interview with the Times, Welles cites his father’s heart attack as the catalyst that sparked him to begin “singing the news,” a coping mechanism in “making sense of the world around him.” Though you can find allegorical and poetic moments in even his most blunt song, the description holds through a lot of their real estate, delivering blunt reflections and ongoings ripped from CNN tickers and op-ed columns.
“United Health” and “War Isn’t Murder” Showcase Radically Transparent Approach
Take “United Health,” obviously a reflection on the prescription drug and insurance industry in the wake of Luigi Mangione. “The procedure that you need ain’t the cost effective route / And only two-percent of peoplе end up winning a dispute.” Elsewhere in some of his recent highlights, he wonders aloud whether we’ve created a society in which “War Isn’t Murder” or where “War Is A God,” evoking peacenik concepts ripped straight from the artistic Vietnam protests of bygone eras.
Whether the general Bob Dylan tenor and effect that Jesse Welles taps into is intentional or not, the similarities to folk singers of the “Complete Unknown” subject singer’s era are instructive in dissecting Welles’ catalog. It’s unquestionably a retro aesthetic that he delivers, partially because of the folksy acoustic guitar underpinnings of much of his work, but also because this earnest and direct message is often unexplored by his peers. Ascribe that to whatever you’d like: a postmodern allergy to sincerity or maybe stronger beliefs in other means of action. Whatever cause you personally resonate with, when done right, there’s still an audience out there for works with a message.
See Macklemore, unquestionably not a household name some 10 years after “Thrift Shop,” yet able to land his biggest hit in recent years with the back-to-back gut punches of “hind’s hall” and “f***ed up,” responses to the war in Palestine and general world politics and inequity, respectively. Coming out of the Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl halftime show, many of the most glowing reviews focused on the interplay between lampooning much of this country’s most valued iconography directly in front of President Donald Trump.
Middle Shows Jesse Welles Is Anything But A One-Trick Pony
Though Jesse Welles has many of these stream-of-consciousness pieces to thank for his recent social media virality, he’s careful to not pigeonhole himself as he looks forward in his career. Capitalizing on his current belle-of-the-ball status, the industry veteran released Middle, perhaps the most instructive bit of recent material in charting his career forward.
Zooming out from the granular, one-issue topics of previous loosies, tracks like “Horses” take a birds-eye view of the world’s many ills and how to shape your life in that modern landscape. There are still transparent musings, the singer opening the song with “all my flannels made in Bangladesh, all my t-shirts in Vietnam.” However, driving instrumentation a la Creedence Clearwater Revival takes over as he pirouettes into punchy, opaque witticisms: “You know the harder you think, the deeper you sink” and “Thought I was gathering oats for my horses / I was getting by whipping my mules.”
This solo chapter marks the umpteenth reinvention into the Jacob Welles project. There’s no telling whether this most successful leg of his journey will continue to define his future work, but it’s safe to say that he’s found himself a niche if he so chooses. Catch all of the Jacob Welles discography now wherever you stream your music.
Elsewhere in our coverage, Zuli Jr. – Pistol sees the singer-songwriter get heart-wrenchingly personal.
