Skip to main content

Module 4. Silence to Song: Reinvention and the Rise of "Singing the News"

Course 1: Singing the News. Understanding Jesse Welles and the Wellespring Project
Estimated Time: 30 minutes

🧭 Module Objectives

  • Explain how personal crisis and digital media combined to spark Welles' creative rebirth.
  • Describe the defining features of his 2024–25 "Singing the News" phenomenon.
  • Analyze how technology, community, and protest traditions converge in his modern folk practice.

The Hiatus and the Heart Attack

After years of touring burnout and disillusionment, Wells returned home to Arkansas and considered leaving music altogether.

Even though he may have considered his music "career" to be over, his artist's compulsion to create and experiment remained. Returning to his 'Jeh-Sea Wells' roots, but retaining the 'Welles' name, he indulged his need to create through new home-based recordings, staying under the radar and—perhaps—not caring (much?) if he had an audience beyond himself.

In 2022-23, he released an electronic concept album—Alien Secrets—online, as well as a trio of albums—Arkancide, Arkancide 2, and Arkancide 3—revisiting and re-releasing many of his earlier 'Jeh-Sea Wells' tracks.

Here's the fourth track off 2023's Alien Secrets:

Then, in February 2024, his father suffered a heart attack. Sitting beside him in the hospital, and reading a biography of legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie, Welles felt time compress:

He was barely here a minute... I thought, I've got so much work to do. I'm going to write and sing tunes until I'm all hooked up on a bed like that. (Acoustic Guitar interview, 2025)

That vow launched an astonishing creative outpouring: almost-daily videos, eight albums, and an EP within little more than a single year.

Singing the News

Welles began posting raw performances directly to his phone camera—no studio, no filters, only a Stella parlor guitar and an open sky. The first viral clip, "War Isn't Murder," captured the online imagination: an unshaven Arkansan beneath power lines, denouncing war profiteering in a voice that rasped like weathered oak.

Soon came "Whistle Boeing," "United Health," "Fentanyl," "Ozempic," and dozens more: topical songs responding to headlines, often within hours of breaking news.

Here's his May 2024 song "Happy Mother's Day," referring to the May 3 shooting of Air Force serviceman Roger Fortson by an Okaloosa County Deputy Sherriff:

Instead of recording tunes, we're just going to perform them to the camera and that's it—that's the take. (Acoustic Guitar interview, 2025)

This immediacy became his signature. His "90-second reels" were the modern equivalent of Woody Guthrie's 78-rpm records: dispatches from the frontlines of everyday life. His LinkTree tagline, "come for the songs, stay for the songs" may suggest that these topical 'singing the news' songs are at least partially intended as a gateway to his 'more personal' tracks.

The Folk Tradition Reborn Online

Journalists framed Welles as both revivalist and revolutionary:

  • NME (2025) called him a "TikTok folk hero" whose "road to Damascus moment" turned doom-scrolling into songwriting.
  • Saving Country Music named him Songwriter of the Year (2024), citing "perhaps the most productive and poignant year in the history of the craft."
  • Farm Aid described him as "fearless... cutting through all bullshit", performing "alone in the wilderness of Arkansas."

His work connected a century-old troubadour lineage—from Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan to John Prine and Phil Ochs—to the digital commons of social media.

Albums of Reinvention

Between 2024 and 2025, Welles issued a flurry of recordings:

  • Hells Welles (2024) — lo-fi bedroom folk with slide guitar and field recordings.
  • Patchwork (2024) — intimate story-songs about family, books, and resilience.
  • All Creatures Great and Small (2024) — playful spiritual miniatures.
  • Middle (2025) — his studio return, anchored by the anthem "Horses."
  • Under the Powerlines (2025) – a 63-song release of single-take outdoor performances released on social media between April–September 2024.
  • Pilgrim (2025) – poetic almost-apocalyptic narrative of American life, nostalgia, and social commentary.
  • Devil's Den (2025) – largely acoustic single-performer explorations of human nature with poetic lyricism and social commentary.
  • With the Devil (2025) – live, full-band, and electric rendition of all the songs from Devil's Den, with a companion video performance.
  • Under the Powerlines II (2025) – a follow-up to the earlier Under the Powerlines release, featuring 25 additional performances released on social media between October–December 2024,

On Jimmy Kimmel Live! he performed "Horses," singing:

I'm singing this song about loving all the people that you've come to hate.

The lyric crystallized his new message: healing through honesty, love as political practice.

Community and Connection

Welles' videos invited a dialogue rather than a broadcast. Fans commented, duetted, and built threads of interpretation beneath each post. He saw them as equals:

I go out and meet everybody after... It's like I found all my friends in every city. (Acoustic Guitar interview, 2025)

He has become known for taking this seriously, sticking around venues after his shows to perform more informally, and even busking (informal street performing) in the cities where he has sold-out shows. Here's an example of him performing "War Isn't Murder" in the New York City subway before his show later that evening:

For many viewers, his feed has become a daily ritual of communal reflection: folk revival as comment section.

Recognition and Cultural Impact

By mid-2025, Jesse Welles had become both a critical darling and a folk-internet fixture:

🏆 John Prine Songwriter Fellowship — Newport Folk Festival (2025)

🎤 Free Speech Award — Americana Honors & Awards (presented by the legendary John Fogerty)

🎶 Farm Aid Performances — introduced at Farm Aid 2024 by Dave Matthews as "one of the best songwriters I've ever heard."

🎟️ Sold-Out Tours across the USA, Europe, and Australia

Not all responses have been positive. Alongside the acclaim, Welles has received substantial criticism. While some view his lyrics as clever and sophisticated, others find them 'clunky,' 'heavy-handed,' or 'forced.' Many fans cite his authenticity as a major attraction, while critics find his persona to be 'a bit inauthentic' or as a calculated money grab. Disagreements with Welles' political stance is significant and this comes from multiple directions: his criticism of Israel's war in Gaza draws ire from many, as does his critiques of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, but progressives have also attacked him as attempting to "sit in the middle" and not take strong-enough stances on "culture war" issues.

This moment—grassroots, networked, moral in tone, and fueling debates—is the genesis of the Wellespring Project: an academic and creative effort to map the stories, themes, and cultural ripples inside his music.

Where We're Headed

Next, in Module 5: The Art of Relevance: Themes, Motifs, and Modern Protest, we step inside the songs themselves—analyzing their language, imagery, and moral vision—and consider how they reframe the folk genre for a fragmented digital age.

Knowledge Check & Reflection

Sources & Further Reading

A LOT of material about Jesse Welles, his history, and creative work is available online. We can't provide a comprehensive list of these sources, but the following are particularly relevant for this module:

Updated on Nov 6, 2025