Welcome to the song of the day, where we feature a single track, whether its brand new or older than us, overlooked or overplayed, our favorite or no one’s favorite; as long as its interesting, it can be the song of the day.
Today is my friend Tim’s birthday! I drove from Philly to New Haven today to see Lake Street Dive at College Street Music Hall with him (and they were amazing by the way), but today’s song is another that always makes me think of him. Dan Wilson’s music, specifically the last two Semisonic albums and his first solo album, Free Life from 2007, was something that we listened to and loved together as young humans, and was something that helped make us even better friends.
Wilson has spent a lot of the years since the break-up of Semisonic as a songwriter for much bigger acts, like Taylor Swift and Adele and so on, with only two solo albums to his name, plus a new recording compiling songs he wrote for/with other people, Re-Covered, last year. “Free Life” is the title track and the second song on the album. The song features the backing vocals of a frequent Wilson collaborator, Natalie Maines.