Jeff Tweedy Covered The Ted Lasso ThemeJeff Tweedy Covered The Ted Lasso Theme

The immensely popular and divisive Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso — a warm-hearted sitcom that runs on good vibes rather than good jokes, in which Jason Sudeikis plays a relentlessly positive American football coach hired to coach a British football (soccer) team — is close to wrapping up its second season. Today Apple Music has released the soundtrack for that season.

The original score is once again by Marcus Mumford and Tom Howe, but in place of Mumford’s rendition of the theme song — a yarled stadium-sized folk-rock track that would fit in fine at a Mumford & Sons show — the album begins with a new version of the same song by Jeff Tweedy. The Wilco frontman has taken a more minimal approach that reminds me of Big Star’s acoustic ballads but mostly just sounds like Jeff Tweedy excelling in the role of Jeff Tweedy. It is a significant improvement over the original, and it makes me wonder how much more I’d like all of Mumford’s songs if Tweedy put his spin on them. Listen below.

And here’s the whole soundtrack, which only seems to be on Apple Music in some sort of corporate synergy situation: