The Bad Penny (beta)

“The real deal” is a phrase that gets bandied about often – excessively and sloppily so when it comes to singer/songwriters. But listen to Nashville musician William Tyler say five words, and you’ll immediately identify his Achilles’ heel: bullshit. Tyler has no reason to bloviate when he’s spent so much of his decorated career recording and touring with a litany of other sacrilegiously overlooked yet irrefutably talented musicians of the indie-folk, Americana and cosmic country varities. Tyler had membership in Silver Jews and Lambchop, made a record five years ago with Marissa Anderson, and counts Bonnie “Prince” Billy as one of his multitudinous collaborators.

Over the course of his three-decade career, the immediately disarming and infectiously kind Tyler’s list of credits runs longer than one featured at the end of a Sergio Leone film. And yet occasions in which Tyler overtly tackles topical issues or shares his beliefs about politics and the like are rare. Which is why The Bad Penny took note of Tyler’s participation in a recent compilation co-produced by indie filmmaker Rick Alverson called Passages: Artists in Solidarity with Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers. A description accompanying the Western Vinyl release stated: “Passages is both an acknowledgement of work in progress and an invitation to do more. Our representatives need to see us. Our families need to hear from us. Our neighbors and local organizations on the front lines of this crisis are ready for us to join them.”

Curious to learn more about the collection and its participants, we reached out to some of the contributors. One of them curiously rebuffed our invitation to participate in On Tyranny, saying “I really don’t feel like any of my troubles are the real burden of this moment.” But as the days, weeks, months and years in the still-nascent fascist regime taking hold of this country are proving, none of us will be untouched by the shock, awe, pain and lament that is growing like a cancer inside our collective civic body.

Despite the sentiments expressed by that artist, who we will not name out of courtesy, we were delighted when Tyler took us up on our offer. And we were even more delighted to discover over the course of a conversation (which lasted twice as long as planned) that he is an artist with core, deep-seated convictions. It became immediately clear as we began our discussion that Tyler feels an obligation to vociferously oppose the horrors occurring both in the U.S. and across the world in the name of each and every one of us Americans, whether we like it or not. He stands in stark contrast to far too many entertainers (“artists” is too gracious a term in this instance) whose north star is celebrity, not seeking justice for their fellow human beings.

Now that we’ve said our piece, we urge you to listen to Tyler’s, which is exponentially more eloquent and pure than any pundit you might hear blather on a podcast or social media.

For more on William Tyler, go to his website (WilliamTyler.net), YouTube topic channel, YouTube Music page, Bandcamp profile, Instagram and elsewhere.

Check out more installments of The Bad Penny‘s On Tyranny series here.

This entry was posted on 04/08/2026 at 8:59 am and is filed under Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny, Videos with tags authoritarianism, censorship, fascism, free speech, Lambchop, Silver Jews, trump, tyranny, William Tyler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.