by Stewart Cheetham

On Wednesday night, Wilco premiered their new single, Tell Your Friends, in the form of a virtual performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In the band’s first new music since 2019’s Ode to Joy, the video shows the band members at home with their families performing the harmonised parts of the tender chorus, ‘Don’t forget to tell your friends, when you see them again, O’ I love you.’

Also on the show, Jeff Tweedy performed a live solo version of Jesus, Etc. from 2001’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and it is difficult not to compare or describe Tell Your Friends as a return to that classic Wilco sound. It features Tweedy singing an almost meditative, instantaneously memorable melody over a simple, repetitive chord sequence and a lush, trademark Nels Cline guitar break.

Tell Your Friends is available to stream now on Wilco’s Bandcamp and available to own digitally via a charitable donation to World Central Kitchen.