On Tuesday, Jeff Tweedy announced the release of his fourth solo record, Love Is The King, due out on October 23rd via dBpm Records. The album serves as the followup to 2018’s WARM and 2019’s WARMER, and sees the release of two lead singles today, “Guess Again” and the title track.
The release of the album will come on the heels of Tweedy’s second book, How To Write One Song, out October 13th via Penguin Random House. Tweedy will also perform on September 18th in a drive-in concert at the McHenry Outdoor Theater in McHenry, IL. For those who cannot attend the sold-out event, the Wilco frontman will also livestream the concert.
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Love Is The King was composed by Tweedy, alongside his sons Sammy and Spencer, during the COVID-19 lockdown. Recorded in April 2020, just after Wilco was forced to abandon its North American tour, the songwriting process originally began as a challenge where Tweedy tested himself to write a song everyday until he had a whole album.
“At the beginning of the lockdown I started writing country songs to console myself. Folk and country type forms being the shapes that come most easily to me in a comforting way. ‘Guess Again’ is a good example of the success I was having at pushing the world away, counting my blessings — taking stock in my good fortune to have love in my life,” Tweedy said in a press release. “A few weeks later things began to sound like ‘Love Is The King’ — a little more frayed around the edges with a lot more fear creeping in. Still hopeful but definitely discovering the limits of my own ability to self soothe.”
The album’s title track, “Love Is The King”, finds just that mix of melancholy folk songwriting that Tweedy has perfected over several decades. With his dreamy, far-away vocals and simple fingerpicking, “Love Is The King” is relatable to anyone who went through the lockdown process what feels like a lifetime ago. As for “Guess Again”, the song finds a bit more cheerful melody with percussive accompaniment to Tweedy’s acoustic guitar. The lyrics also present a brighter reality that shows, even though things are bleak now, that hope still shines through the love of another.
Listen to “Love Is The King” and “Guess Again” from Jeff Tweedy’s forthcoming album, Love Is The King, due out on October 23rd. Scroll down to see a full tracklist and pre-order the album here.
Jeff Tweedy – “Love Is The King”
[Video: wilco]
Jeff Tweedy – “Guess Again”
[Video: wilco]