Charlie Kirk, Jesse Welles, and the Freedom of Speech

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“Life is too short to not say exactly what you mean all the time.”

This is what Jesse Welles said at the conclusion of his short speech accepting the Freedom of Speech Award at the Americana Music Awards held at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Wednesday night, September 10th. He then walked off stage to thunderous applause from the gallery of the Mother Church of Country Music, leaving them with a sentiment that couldn’t have been more poignant.

Unless you’re really dialed into the doings in independent country and Americana, you probably didn’t even know the Americana Music Awards were happening Wednesday night. It was the assassination of Charlie Kirk that dominated headlines and news feeds, as it probably should have. If you were immersed in the doings of Americanafest like many in the independent country/roots industry were Wednesday, you might not have known about Kirk’s death until you got home and caught up with the rest of the world.

There were a lot of sideways glances when the Americana Music Association announced that Jesse Welles would be receiving what was officially a “Lifetime Achievement Award.” Didn’t Jesse Welles really just appear on the scene recently? Sure, he was a roots rock artist previously, but it’s really been the last year when he’s come to prominence. In fact, Welles was also nominated for Emerging Act of the Year, illustrating the rather weird and juxtaposed accolade.

But along with releasing a lifetime’s worth of work compared to most other songwriters over the last year or so, elevating Jesse Welles for his staunch and outspoken use of music as a way to speak truth to power, empower individuals, and put current events into a greater context couldn’t have been more timely and prescient.

The Americana Free Speech Awards is given out in coordination with the First Amendment Center founded by Nashville native John Seigenthaler, and located at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University. It certainly wouldn’t be a radical pronouncement to say that the Americana music world veers left when it comes to American politics. But who was one of the first to ever receive Americana’s Free Speech Award? That would be conservative firebrand Charlie Daniels.

Many have tried to code Jesse Welles left as well, but that’s an insult to the reputation of the political binary Jesse Welles works within. He’s more anti-war, anti-bigotry, anti-corporations, and anti dumping whatever said corporations are dumping into the food supply and environment, poisoning the population. On many occasions, Welles has made folks on the left squirm with his pronouncements, just as he has people on the right. He’s also appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience, and is a fan of folks like comedian Tim Dillon, who also uses his artistic forum to speak truth to power.

But most importantly, Jesse Welles is sharing his perspective in often forceful and direct ways that are intended to make us all feel uncomfortable about the current state of affairs in our nation and world.

For Charlie Kirk, the assessment of political alignment was much more simple. Conservative and doggedly principled, he became famous for his back and forth with college students on campuses about political issues. But within the clearly politically-slanted forum that he worked in, there was the underlying maxim that everyone should be allowed to speak—and perhaps most importantly—people from across the political divide should speak to each other.

Jesse Welles and Charlie Kirk didn’t really have a lot in common politically—though there was probably more overlap than one might glean from the surface. But the one fundamental thing that undergirded both of their approaches was “Life is too short to not say exactly what you mean all the time.” This isn’t just our right as Americans. This is our responsibility, to ourselves, and each other.

It’s pretty simple. We have entered a late-stage era of American life where political violence, corruption, and a severe level of oligarchy has metastasized throughout society. Those presenting this as an unprecedented moment should recall the 1960s and the Kennedy assassinations, the killing of Martin Luther King, and all the political upheaval and violence of that era. But that was 60 years ago now. The level of political violence is certainly unprecedented in many of our lifetimes.

It was John Fogerty who made the trek to the Country Music Mother Church to give Jesse Welles his Freedom of Speech Award on Wednesday. The two had actually taken the stage at Nashville’s famed Exit/In the evening before to perform together. Wednesday night’s Americana Music Awards concluded with John Fogerty singing a few of the songs from the Credence Clearwater Revival catalog, including capping off the awards with a big singalong on “Proud Mary” that incorporated many of the performers from the evening, including Jesse Welles.


For years, Fogerty wasn’t even able to sing his own songs due to legal restrictions. It wasn’t until a deal was struck with Concord Records in 2023 that Fogerty was finally given that right. He recently re-recorded many of his top songs Taylor Swift-style, and re-released them in an album called Legacy: the Credence Clearwater Revival years.

So yes, John Fogerty doesn’t just know a thing or two about Freedom of Speech via the protest songs he wrote and sang back in the ’60s when he lived through and helped chronicle that period in American history like Jesse Welles is doing today. His whole life John Fogerty has been told what he could and could not sing, legally.

John Fogerty giving Jesse Welles the Freedom of Speech Award

Some love to wax about how all music, and all speech is political in nature. But those that know the true power of music, they know that music’s power ranges much beyond the political. It was former American President Jimmie Carter who once admitted that Bob Dylan had done more to reshape American culture than he ever could. Music has that power because it has the capability of uniting as opposed to dividing.

It’s hard to paint a rosy picture about what the future might hold for the United States. The death of Charlie Kirk could result in reprisal violence. It could be used as a precursor to stifle speech in America, whether it’s through direct action of the government, or the cooling action an assassination has on all of us to think twice before we say what we believe.

But whether your Freedom of Speech hero is Charlie Kirk or Jesse Welles, it should be for all of us to protect our neighbor’s right to “say exactly what [they] mean all the time.” After all, it might be that First inalienable American right—and that First right only—that will help us rise out of this moment, and get the American project back on track before it unravels forever like a ragged old flag.

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