Dan Wilson Music

Singer, Songwriter, Collaborator

“Red Light” – Official Music Video

My new release is “Red Light,” from the Dancing on the Moon EP. The song is about three things: 1) the day I found out that the master tapes of my two bands Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic had burned in the infamous Universal Music fire (the red light of the fire seen from the clouds); 2) my love for recording on tape despite #1 (thus the red light of the title); and 3) my Mom’s memory loss – almost as though her master tapes are being gradually erased. In the video, the ghosts of all these vanishing things are played by a yellow 1971 Ford Mustang and my daughter in a ghost costume in the passenger seat. Hope you love it. Directed by Yazz alali and edited by Sara Mulford. Shout out to Ethan Gruska and Jenny Owen Youngs for writing the song with me, and Ethan and John Mark Nelson for producing it with me.

“Red Light” Official Music Video 

New Single – “Dancing On The Moon” – Official Music Video

My new single, “Dancing On The Moon” is out today!

I wrote the chorus at my piano, and it felt like a found object, like something I saw on the sidewalk and picked up. To me, it really does sound like a couple, marooned on a distant moon, trying to make contact with someone – anyone – and dancing under the super-lonely stars. 

Working on the song, I wanted to convey the feeling that comes from being toe-to-toe with someone you care about. You might be with them out in the vast emptiness of space, yet you’re still completely dialed into each other and nothing else matters.

Official Music Video

New Single – “On The Floor” (Perfume Genius Cover)

I’ve loved this Perfume Genius song since the first time I heard it. The more I listened, the more I loved it. When 2021 came to an end, it was one of a handful of songs at the very top of my “most listened” list – up there with “Go Easy, Kid” by Monica Martin and “Doin’ It” by Herbie Hancock. Good company. So I cut a version of it for my “Dancing on the Moon” EP. The EP is out in the fall, but this one is out now! I wish I’d written it myself.