Jeff Tweedy Covers Star Moles’ “Real Magic,” Making a Rare Public Substack Release

Jeff Tweedy’s cover choices have become a quiet form of endorsement. His Starship Casual newsletter on Substack regularly features songs that catch his ear, though most of those recordings sit behind a paywall. This week, he made a rare exception for Star Moles, publishing a public take on “Real Magic,” a track from the Philadelphia group’s March album, Highway To Hell.

Star Moles is the project of Emily Moales, part of a New Jersey–rooted collective that has earned attention for its loose, retro-leaning indie-pop. Moales previously appeared alongside the Sullivan siblings at Wilco’s Solid Sound festival, and now Tweedy is lending his voice to her music directly. In a short note accompanying the cover, he explained that he had to sing the song unusually low — he was in a hotel room and couldn’t hit the higher register. He also admitted the melodic twists were difficult to fully capture: “I don’t think I got all of them, but hopefully you get the idea.”

Tweedy’s description of Moales’s lyrics as “fun, funny, sweet, and touching” reflects the tone of Highway To Hell, which trades heavy-handedness for playful, vintage-indebted songcraft. The cover doesn’t reboot the song; it refocuses attention on the writing itself, offering a brief, unadorned reading that strips away the album’s fuller arrangements. In doing so, it gives Star Moles something more useful than promotion — a clear signal from an artist whose judgment carries weight outside the usual festival and playlist circuits.