Jesse Welles: The Man Who Sings What We’re All Thinking

Written By: Costa Petropoulos

If you don’t know who Jesse Welles is, you should. But if you don’t, don’t worry, by the end of this blog you’ll know him and what he’s about quite well. Welles is a folk singer-songwriter but as far as I’m concerned, he’s THE folk singer-songwriter. I’ll be playing a lot of his music on my segment A Bit of Everything soon (every Tuesday 3pm – 4pm). He’s the voice of the poor and the working man. I don’t think there’s a better wordsmith in the music business right now. Jesse is from Ozark, Arkansas and he came out of nowhere in 2024. He gathered quite the cult following almost overnight, singing songs of protest with a gritty, gravelly voice like no other. He posts his songs on various social media platforms singing about current events and trending issues almost immediately after they happen. His ability to create such masterfully written songs on such short notice is a feat of lyrical strength.  

His most famous song War Isn’t Murder talks about the Palestinian genocide, the decimation of the Gaza strip and how women and children aren’t exempt from the cruelties man is capable of. Another song of his and a personal favorite of mine is called Whistle Boeing. In this song, Welles sings of Joshua Dean, a Boeing quality auditor and John ‘Swampy’ Barnet who worked in quality control. Both men died shortly after blowing the whistle about the safety (or lack thereof) of Boeing’s aircraft specifically the 787 Dreamliner and 737 MAX series. Joshua Dean was a health nut and had a memory keen. He ran every day, went to the gym and was very careful about his diet. But shortly after he blew the whistle, he fell violently ill and ended up dying from a very sudden slew of problems. He was diagnosed with influenza B, MRSA and pneumonia which ultimately led to his death. Swampy Barnet ended up suing Boeing after exposing them. Swampy even said to a friend of his “If anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.”  But what do ya know, he ended up “committing suicide” shorty after starting the suit. What an interesting coincidence…to quote Welles “Boeings got planes in the sky, but Boeings got men on the ground. You mess with their shares, buddy beware they can make sure that you land safe and sound.” Each one of Jesse’s songs tell an important story. Jesse talks about real issues. Not the milk toast messages and meanings that modern music producers have pushed to the top of the charts and have made the status quo. One of his more recent songs simply called Red, is a semi-satirical jab at Elon Musk, Trump and his tribalistic followers. He sings with an almost righteous anger about our illusion of choice when it comes to the parties we vote for in American politics. He also presents the idea that the only war we have in this country is a class war. There is no red and blue, there is only the rich and the poor. 

While a lot of Jesse’s songs are political that’s not the case for all of them. His songs Ozempic and Fat go hand in hand and they’re about the vicious cycle we have in this country of selling cheap food that’s engineered to be as addictive as possible to make a profit off poor people. In Ozempic he calls out Novo Nordisk with the lyric “Novo Nordisk is a profiteering, carpet bagging, elixir peddling, mafia masquerading as the help. The food is poison that’s the source. If the hay is bad you don’t whip the horse.” Couldn’t have put it better myself. This song is a perfect analogy of how our country is obsessed with treating the symptoms of the bigger problem which in this case is our horrible food. He also brings attention to the pharmaceutic waste these companies produce that leeches into the ecosystem and ruins the environment. Fat shares similar sentiments to Ozempic but he phrases it in a very clever way. Observe: “Well, it’s your own damn fault you’re so damn fat it’s just like when your grandpappy’s lungs turned black. That was his fault too, the doctor told him what to do. He smoked Camels, guess he bought the wrong pack.” He almost sings it from the perspective society has (or the perspective the companies want us to have) on fat people and smokers. It’s the people’s fault, not the companies peddling the poison. That phrasing made some people upset. People who didn’t understand the meaning of the song took it at face value and tried to cancel him thinking he was a snarky conservative musician trying to upset the woke left instead of the talented songwriter he really is. Then he says “It ain’t like a team of evil scientists through rigorous testing created the most abominable snacks. Grinding critters and chemicals up in a factory now your hand is stuck inside of the sack.” This lyric is the perfect way to drive home what he’s really saying in this song. It isn’t our fault, it’s theirs. 

Exposing corporate wrongdoing and unbiased commentary of our current political climate is Welles’ wheelhouse, but he writes about so much more than that. From what I’ve covered so far, you’d think Jesse only sings about the bad in the world but that’s not the case. For example his song Springtime is about leaves turning green, frogs and toads, birds chirping, and flowers blooming. With lines like “I’m gonna play with the puppies, and paint the easter eggs. Geometric patterns with rings like Saturn pastel yellows, blues and reds.” and “It’s Spring again, don’t God keep a promise. Its Spring again, mother earth keeps her word now, the woman is honest.” It’s a feel-good song of rejoice at the return of Spring. Another happy song he has is called Turtles which is obviously about turtles, but he also slips some environmental sentiments in there too. The whole song he talks about turtles walkin around and having a good time being turtles. But at the end he has two lines that carry a deeper meaning  “Turtles don’t need a whole lot. They’re pretty independent dudes. They need clean water and clean air about the same things as we need up here.” Then he follows that one up with “Turtle don’t be a stranger. You ain’t gotta be a turtle park ranger to see that the turtles might be in danger. We’re gonna have to make some changes around here for the turtles.” Very slick way to turn a song that was just about turtles into something more, right? 

There are so many more songs I could keep quoting and yapping on about, but I think I’ve given you a solid preview of what you’re in for when you listen to Jesse Welles. He has a song for everybody, and If you read all the way through this I can guarantee a lot of his songs will hit home for you too. You should jump into the Jesse Well and listen to everything he has to offer. These are our songs, the people’s songs. He sings for you and me. I think it’s important we hear our own songs, don’t you?