Daniel Dodd Wilson (born May 20, 1961) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, visual artist, and record producer. He gained recognition in the late 1990’s with his band, Semisonic, and their single, "Closing Time." Wilson is a 7x Grammy nominee and 4x Grammy winner for his work as a co-writer and record producer. He received nominations for Best Rock Song, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year with Semisonic's "Closing Time" (1999), Taylor Swift's Red (2014), and Jon Batiste's "Butterfly" (2024) respectively. Wilson won Grammy awards for Song Of The Year with The Chicks' "Not Ready to Make Nice" (2007), Album Of The Year with Adele's "21" (2012), Best Country Song with Chris Stapleton's "White Horse" (2024), and Best Song Written For Visual Media with Jon Batiste's "It Never Went Away" (2025).

Referred to as the "songwriter's songwriter," Wilson has written with a broad range of songwriters across genres. His other collaborators include Laufey, Weezer, Suki Waterhouse, Noah Kahan, Keith Urban, Pink, Mitski, Leon Bridges, Nas, Panic! at the Disco, My Morning Jacket, John Legend, Brandy Clark, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and many others.

In addition to his Grammy nominations and awards, Wilson has received accolades from across the industry. In 2024, Wilson won the CMA Award for Song of the Year with Chris Stapleton's “White Horse.” Later that year, “It Never Went Away,” which he co-wrote with Batiste for the documentary American Symphony, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. He also received nominations from the Academy of Country Music for Song of the Year for Dierks Bentley's "Home" (2012) and Album of the Year for Taylor Swift's "Red" (2012). In 2021, Wilson produced the re-recorded version of Taylor Swift's "Treacherous” for the album, Red (Taylor's Version).

Besides fronting Semisonic, co-writing, and producing records, Wilson has released several solo recordings, including Re-Covered (2017), a cover album of some of his previously co-written songs. He was also a member of the Minneapolis based, psychedelic pop-rock band Trip Shakespeare.

Early life and education Wilson is a native of St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Wilson attended Harvard University, where he studied visual arts with a focus on printmaking and from which he graduated B.A. summa cum laude in Visual and Environmental Studies in 1983, while he resided in Dunster House. Wilson is an accomplished artist, and won the first Louis Sudler Prize for Outstanding Artistic Talent and Achievement in 1983. While in college, he began collaborating with his brother, singer-songwriter Matt Wilson, who also attended Harvard College. The Wilson brothers played in two bands, Animal Dance and the Love Monsters. After college, Wilson pursued his interest in drawing and painting, first in San Francisco and then in Minneapolis.

Career

Early career In 1987, Wilson joined the Minneapolis band Trip Shakespeare, which his brother Matt Wilson had founded with bassist John Munson and drummer Elaine Harris. The original three members had already released one record, Applehead Man, and now as a quartet, with Wilson on guitar, piano, sharing lead vocal duties with Matt Wilson—with whom Wilson also co-wrote many of the songs—and Munson, the band released three more albums (Are You Shakespearienced?, 1988, Gark Records; Across the Universe, 1990, A&M Records; Lulu, 1991, A&M Records) and one EP (Volt, 1992, Twin Tone).

Since Trip Shakespeare's breakup in 1992, Wilson has continued to collaborate with his brother, including the release of two live albums (Minneapolis 2010 and Minneapolis 2013).

With Semisonic

After Trip Shakespeare's breakup in 1992, Wilson and Munson joined with drummer Jacob Slichter to form Pleasure, a trio that was later renamed Semisonic. Semisonic released one EP, three full-length albums, and one live album.

The band's first album, Great Divide, received critical acclaim. David Fricke wrote in a year-end Rolling Stone article on the notable albums of 1996, "Great Divide is that rare '96 beast, a record of simple but sparkling modern pop, rattling with power-trio vitality." It was their 1998 release, Feeling Strangely Fine, however, that brought the band to widespread national and then international attention and success. Powered by Wilson's songs "Closing Time", which was a number-one hit on the Modern Rock charts for thirteen weeks in the spring and summer of 1998, the follow-up single "Singing in My Sleep", and "Secret Smile", a breakthrough hit for the band internationally, Feeling Strangely Fine attained platinum sales status in the U.S. and U.K. "Closing Time" received a 1999 Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song and has become an enduring pop-culture reference point for the late 1990s. It was a focal point of the plot and soundtrack of the 2011 film Friends with Benefits.

Semisonic's third album, All About Chemistry, was released in 2001, and featured Wilson's song "Chemistry", the album's first single, and also included "One True Love", a song Wilson co-wrote with Carole King.

Semisonic stopped touring in August 2001 but continued to perform on occasion. Slichter's memoir, So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star, provides a detailed account of the band's adventures and misadventures in the music business.

On June 26, 2020, Semisonic released their first single in nearly 20 years, "You're Not Alone," followed by an EP of the same name on September 18, 2020.

As a solo artist

Free Life Wilson's solo debut, Free Life, was released in 2007 by American Recordings. Produced with Rick Rubin, Free Life was recorded in Minneapolis and Los Angeles and includes performances by Tracy Bonham, Sheryl Crow, Jason Lader, Gary Louris, Natalie Maines, Benmont Tench, and a number of Minneapolis-based musicians including multi-instrumentalist and frequent Semisonic sideman Ken Chastain, Eric Fawcett, John Hermanson, Joanna James, Mason Jennings, Steve Rhoem, Joe Savage, as well as Wilson's Semisonic bandmates Munson and Slichter.

Free Life helped establish Wilson's reputation as a songwriter, with The A.V. Club writing, "the star of the show here is Wilson's remarkable instinct for creating gorgeous songs, and his unabashed, obvious joy in doing so. For anyone worried that songcraft is an endangered species, Free Life should ease those fears."

The song Breathless became a big hit in Greece (and other Balkan countries) and Dan Wilson performed it at the 2009 MAD Video Music Awards.

Love Without Fear

Wilson's second solo album, Love Without Fear, was released on April 15, 2014 and includes performances by Sara Bareilles, Missy Higgins, Lissie, Natalie Maines, Blake Mills, Sara Watkins, and Sean Watkins. The first recording from Love Without Fear, "Disappearing" (with a cover of Neil Young's "Out on the Weekend" included as a b-side) was released on November 7, 2013 and was the debut release of the new singles label, Canvasclub.

In describing the album, Wilson said, "The songs are about being left alone, not wanting to lose someone, about desperately wishing for connection and togetherness. The sound of the record lives at the intersection of Americana and Beatles- influenced rock and roll. A little bit of twang and a lot of cinematic emotion." The album received largely favourable reviews emphasizing Wilson's reputation as a songwriter. "Dan Wilson's career is proof positive that smart, elegant songwriting has a place in music... [Love Without Fear] is a lovely amalgamation of chamber rock, gentle country, gooey '70s pop and snappy soul."

Re-Covered Wilson's third solo studio album, Re-Covered, was released on August 4, 2017. The album is a collection of reinterpretations of songs Wilson wrote for other artists, both big hits and "songs that I always wished were big hits, but weren't." The album includes "Someone Like You" (written with Adele), "Not Ready To Make Nice" (written with Dixie Chicks), "Home" (written with Dierks Bentley and Brett Beavers), and "When The Stars Come Out" (written with Chris Stapleton).

Singles In September 2018 Wilson announced that he would begin releasing new music that Fall. Rather than organizing the new songs into an album, he would instead release them over time as monthly singles. According to Wilson, "I fell in love with the idea of just letting songs out into the world when they happen." "I don't have anything against making an album. If I do 15 or 20 of these I would love the idea of packaging them together and calling it an album. I think that'd be fantastic, but I don't really have that in my mind. I'm just trying to be free."

Words and Music by Dan Wilson Wilson's discoveries as a solo artist and collaborator with other artists are the subject of "Words and Music by Dan Wilson", solo concerts in which he performs some of his songs and describes the songs' various inspirations or the insights that occasioned their composition. "Words and Music by Dan Wilson" has come to Hotel Cafe, Room 5 and Largo in Los Angeles, Joe's Pub and City Winery in New York, World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, Jammin' Java in DC, Rams Head in Annapolis, The Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Schubas Tavern in Chicago, Berklee College of Music's Red Room at Cafe 939 in Boston, and the Red Barn concert series in Northfield, MN. Wilson has also presented Words & Music workshops at the 2012 ASCAP expo, UCLA's Herb Alpert School of Music, and USC's Thornton School of Music.

Wilson's thoughts about songwriting and the creative process are also captured in his series, Words & Music in Six Seconds, which was originally launched on Vine and is now regularly posted on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. From American Songwriter, "In his short videos, Wilson provides insightful quips about common songwriting insecurities, methodology, personal writing quirks, and various other tips for writing your best." In November 2020, he released the Words + Music in 6 Seconds deck, a collection of cards written and designed by Wilson based on his Instagram series.

As a songwriter and producer As a songwriter and producer, Wilson has collaborated with a number of artists. Two of these collaborations have earned him Grammy Awards.

A number of artists have described Wilson's ability to help put their feelings and ideas into song. Speaking of her experience of working with him, Pink said, in an online interview, "He is brilliant, and he's a thoughtful songwriter. And he's a song crafter . . . like old-school. He crafts songs and he thinks about them. And I learned a lot from working with him." In describing her co-writing with Wilson, Adele said, "Dan had me on my hands and knees, crying my eyes out - there's just something about him that made me completely open up as a composer."

Taking the Long Way – The Dixie Chicks Wilson co-wrote six of the songs on the Dixie Chicks multiple-Grammy-winning album Taking the Long Way, including the title song and "Not Ready to Make Nice", which earned Wilson and the Dixie Chicks the 2007 Grammy for Song of the Year. In the 2006 film Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, Wilson speaks on camera about his experience as a co-writer on this album, especially in regard to helping the Dixie Chicks make an artistic response to their rejection by radio and a large swath of their fans in the wake of the band's statements about President Bush and the Iraq War.

One of the songs he co-wrote for this album, "Easy Silence", appears on Free Life, with Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines singing harmonies.

21 – Adele Wilson co-wrote three of the songs on Adele's multiple-Grammy-winning 21, "Don't You Remember", "One and Only", and, most notably, "Someone Like You", which became a number one hit in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand was a top ten hit around the globe. As a producer of this track, on which he also played piano, Wilson shared in the 2012 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.