The 2024 Saving Country Music Songwriter of the Year
Saving Country Music doesn’t always bestow a “Songwriter of the Year” award. In fact, no such award has ever been bestowed before. Though Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Single of the Year, and Artist of the Year are mainstays, it’s only occasionally that live performances, musicians, videos, and other such things are recognized. For 2024, it feels imperative to recognize a songwriter.
What do we owe such an occasion to, and who is the beneficiary? It’s only the kind of incredible year that Jesse Welles has orchestrated that justifies manifesting an award out of thin air, and handing it to him. And few if anyone who’s been following Jesse Welles in 2024 will put up a fight. It’s only the dwindling amount of people who are perfectly unaware who will say, “Who?” and “Why?”
There may have never been a more inspiring, industrious, illuminating, hilarious, cunning, compelling, poignant and productive year in the entire history of the songwriting discipline than the one Jesse Welles authored in 2024. Well, Bob Dylan in 1965 might have something to say about that. But in regards to volume, Jesse Welles even has ‘ol Bobby Dylan beat.
We live in an era when dudes and gals braying into a phone camera catch fire overnight, and completely upstage the music hierarchy. Simply the format Jesse Welles has chosen to showcase his songs through is its own social commentary, both on the excesses of the music industry and how it commodifies a songwriter’s expressions into product, and how silly it is that phone videos can seed superstars, sometimes undeservedly.
Irony, self-awareness, wit, and wisdom are the shades Jesse Welles paints in. If you don’t know, Welles has been posting tons of videos on Instagram and YouTube (and other formats) all year as commentary on the incredibly troubling feed of current events coming down the pike. He’s also released some these musings in proper song recordings, and assembled them into albums like Hells Welles.
But really it’s the real-time, sometimes daily aspect of his output that has made the phenomenon so enrapturing and unique. Once you fall down the rabbit hole or start following him, there’s no escape. It’s a steady diet of incredible songs speaking truth to power, and putting your own worried thoughts to rhyme.
Originally from the small town of Ozark, Arkansas, Welles commenced his career in 2012 by releasing homespun recordings via Bandcamp and Soundcloud. He also formed a band called Dead Indian in 2012 that eventually released some singles, EPs and albums, and later Welles had a band called Cosmic-Americana. Welles opened big shows for bands like Rival Sons and Greta Van Fleet. He eventually moved to Nashville to record the doomy, dirty, folk punk-inspired thrash rock album Red Trees and White Trashes with Dave Cobb in 2018.
But Jesse’s career was just sort of meandering along until he discovered this thread of writing strikingly relevant songs tied to current events, and saying the things we’re all thinking, but struggle to express.
And what’s great about Jesse Welles is that he’s not taking any sides in the culture war except for those who are the victims. He’s not pulling any punches or taking any prisoners. Whether it’s America’s military industrial complex and the wars its perpetrating, the poison in our food, or the pharmaceutical companies who are making billions for writing scripts for over-diagnosed diseases or profiteering off the mental health crisis, Jesse Welles has some sharp words for them all.
The only thing impinging on the possibility of generations looking back on this year in the past tense with surprise and awe at what Jesse Welles has accomplished is if Jesse continues his quasar-level of output into 2025 and allows it all to blend together into one incredible body of work.
Saving Country Music’s Songwriter of the Year? That seems like the least that could be said to acknowledge what Jesse Welles accomplished in 2024.
January 3, 2025 @ 1:56 pm
I checked him out when you talked about him a few weeks back. While I enjoyed it, I found myself feeling uncomfortable which i recognized that is exactly what Jesse wants. I didn’t go back and listen until this article. I’m all in at this point. I went to his site to buy his LP and saw every show is sold out, including Austin at Antone’s! I was watching his Live Aid video and can just imagine how the crowd looked seeing him for the 1st time…thanks, Kyle!
January 3, 2025 @ 3:13 pm
It all starts with Tom Lehrer in the 1960s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pklr0UD9eSo
I don’t think Jesse Welles will make quite that kind of impact.
January 3, 2025 @ 3:44 pm
My dad would always play Tom Lehrer growing up and he is an all-time musical genius in my book. But it’s worth noting that Lehrer’s music was for and primarily enjoyed by an affluent and educated upper class and college students, often well on their way to becoming members of that class. Welles’s music has more of a “for the working class by the working class” feel to it than Lehrer’s ever did.
I think of Welles more in the vein of artists like Pete Seeger or early Bob Dylan, or maybe rockers like The Dead Kennedys or early Dropkick Murphys. Welles maybe leans away from being outwardly as left-wing as the above. But I think that’s more of a commentary on how many feel that today’s “progressive” party has abandoned the working class, and people in Welles or Seeger’s position who are pro-labor and want to advance class equity causes are left without any home in today’s political climate.
Great article Trig and I can’t wait to see Jesse when he comes through my area in a few months.
January 3, 2025 @ 3:34 pm
I’d never heard of him until I became a Tik Tok junkie earlier last year. He’s on there a lot. Didn’t realize he’s been around that long. Great writer.
January 3, 2025 @ 4:27 pm
………………[ yawn ]. inspiring. yo-da-laydee….. who?
January 3, 2025 @ 8:16 pm
Maybe this handsome old black dude should start braying into a camera phone.I could achieve stardom at 71.Anyway,congratulations,Jesse,and hopefully you’ll be the CMA Songwriter Of 2025 !!!
January 3, 2025 @ 8:51 pm
Trigger,
This is why I just love your site. I’ve watched about a dozen of his YouTube videos today. I’m hooked. What a cool kid. Thanks for the intro.
January 3, 2025 @ 9:04 pm
Appreciate you inventing this category for him, he is a well-deserved recipient. I think his message is best served in small doses rather than trying to sit through an entire album. In 10 or 20 years, if I am so lucky to still be alive, I hope to come across his album while pawing through my digital detritious and get a taste of what 2024 was like.
January 3, 2025 @ 9:04 pm
I love this! Welles deserved some kind of recognition for 2024. Hopefully Songwriter of the Year will be an annual SCM award.
January 4, 2025 @ 1:04 am
I fell down the rabbit hole. Thanks Trig!
January 4, 2025 @ 9:26 am
Absolutely the first person I would’ve thought of if I had known this was going to be a “best of” category. He has knocked it out of the park with consistent heavy hitters full of lines that only hit harder the more you listen to them. Jesse is doing massively important work.
January 4, 2025 @ 11:35 am
I was robbed.
AG
January 4, 2025 @ 6:07 pm
Lori McKenna is the songwriter of the year from today until she writes her last ever song (which is, hopefully, a long time from now).
January 4, 2025 @ 6:28 pm
Perfection.
Ivar. Norway.
January 4, 2025 @ 9:48 pm
When i saw the name it didnt register. Once i saw his picture, it did. Seen him a bunch on tik tok. I think more of john prine more than anything when i hear him though not as gifted. Whether he deserves this award, i dont know. Im long since really caring about awards and i dont get too worked up over them. Good for him.
January 5, 2025 @ 2:24 am
I have my doubts. The songs of his that I’ve heard all seem like they’re grabbing low-hanging fruit. Sometimes he displays a way with words, but it often verges on novelty. When I think “Songwriter of the Year,” I think of the lasting impact and universal insights of writers like Guy Clark, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton or Kris Kristofferson. Their songs are Honest and Poetic. Yeah, Welles’ songs have some honesty (with a lower-case “h”) but they are lower-case poetic and he stretches for the next word that rhymes. Good music takes a side, which this guy definitely does (and he does so with some humor) but I just don’t see his songs as having much of a shelf life. Woody Guthrie wrote more than 3,000 songs but we only remember a few of them today because the rest were so intensely topical and timely that there is little reason to sing them today.
Had I written this a few months ago, I would have added, “At least he avoids Oliver Anthony’s penchant for punching down.” But then I heard his song, “Walmart” where he spends most of his lyrical time lampooning Walmart customers. Yeah, he gets in a jab or two at the Walton family and the company’s exploitation of employees, but why make fun of customers who may not have anywhere else to shop? I grew up in a small Midwestern town and saw the impact on local mom-and-pop stores when a Walmart opened up 19 miles away. The mom-and-pops went out of business (a feature of Walmart’s business model) and folks didn’t have a lot of choices for where to shop.
Trigger, while I applaud your adding a “Songwriter of the Year” award — and hope it becomes an annual thing — I just don’t see this guy lasting. He may have put together a good year (and maybe that’s what the award is about) but I just don’t see him having any lasting impact or influence. Yeah, I know the roadside is littered with early reviews trashing the Beatles or Dylan or any number of greats, but I don’t see this guy developing.
January 5, 2025 @ 1:47 pm
We’ll see, he might not last. But he’s already selling out every single live date he posts. It will be interesting to check back in on him at the end of next year.
January 5, 2025 @ 11:48 pm
From what I’ve seen — and granted, I’m an ocean away — Welles’ fans are all-in and few people are on the fence about him. Maybe he’s an act for polarized times; you either love him or detest him. I don’t know what factors account for the sold-out concert dates, but I’m not surprised. At least he bought himself a decent guitar. The Gibson LG-2 beats the Harmony-era Stella.
What I don’t hear in this guy’s songs is empathy. Steve Earle says a songwriter’s first job is empathy and he’s not wrong. Yeah, John Prine (which Welles is not) had some goofy songs, but he also brought the empathy. Prine also made you think, and I’m not sure Welles’ songs do that.
And yeah, I’ll be interested in where he is in a year. At least he got to play FarmAid.
January 5, 2025 @ 12:28 pm
Far cry from songwriter of the year. This guy sings about what should be considered tabloid information these days. I can’t believe SCM has fallen for this. Reminds me of the Phish heads I grew up with in upstate NY. Absolutely zero real world experience, but full of knowledge. Scam.
January 5, 2025 @ 1:45 pm
Totally understand if this guy isn’t your speed. But I would be reluctant to call the stuff he says in his songs “tabloid information.” I think he’s speaking truth to power, including prevailing mainstream narratives that are often false, despite being widely believed and reported by corporate media. I see this all the time with country music. Some of the things he says might not stand up to fact checks, but that’s just about any mainstream news broadcast you see as well. It’s the job of a songwriter like Jesse Welles to make us feel uncomfortable, challenge our belief systems, and venture out onto the cliff.
January 5, 2025 @ 3:00 pm
It’s not that I believe or don’t believe what Welles says. I say tabloid because that’s what it is these days. Main stream or alternative stream doesn’t matter. People consume media is scores of ways. My main problem with Welles is i believe he is just regurgitating that tabloids he consumes. It’s not profound in my eyes. Evan Felker writing about tans legs checkered from a folding chair is profound and important. Thats real writing and original, and nothing to do with 2024 I know. Man against the system is just lazy imo.
January 6, 2025 @ 12:16 am
“Evan Felker writing about tans legs checkered from a folding chair is profound and important.”
I agree that Evan Felker is a great songwriter. His songs have won Song of the Year here in the past. But I did get a chuckle imagining someone who’s never hear that song reading this line and thinking, “say what?”
For some reason, 2025 has been the year that whenever you compliment one artist, it’s taken as an insult to every single other artist in existence, as opposed to just being a moment to recognize someone individually. It’s also been the year that whenever you compliment an artist, half the people wholeheartedly agree, and the other half think you’ve absolutely lost your mind.
January 6, 2025 @ 3:07 pm
Everyone is talking about the songs that are about the current events but haven’t listened to the deep cuts..those are the heavy hitters, simple gifts, fear is the mind killer etc, there’s a lot more to Jesse than these “tabloid” songs, he will last even if he never released a new song because he’s has a solid discography and fan base.
January 7, 2025 @ 4:00 am
i love the idea of songwriter of the year! for me this year is either Pony Bradshaw or Conrad Fisher but i like this dude even if english is not my first language and some of his witness flies over my head. I see him more as a singing stand up comedian, in a good sense.
January 10, 2025 @ 10:55 am
Not for me. He lost me at “Bugs.”