Another deep dive that has introduced me to newer material by Callahan I have yet to explore. I will no doubt return to it as I investigate the work you discuss that I am unfamiliar with and this new live LP. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and the obvious labor of love this piece has been.
My favorite song by Smog is "Truth Serum" from his 'Supper' album. I love the sense of play, yet there is also a profoundness in the questions he asks throughout the tune. But that is going back now. I haven't kept up with his discography, but the albums I own I really enjoy. I think I told you this before, but I discovered Callahan via an early Flaming Lips EP from 1994 called 'Providing Needles For Your Balloons.' On it, they do a Callahan song called "Chosen One." At the time, I was a big Lips fan, and if they liked Callahan, I needed to check him out.
I also really like your section on rhyme. It made me think of the wonderful song by Love, "Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale," where Arthur Lee never mentions the rhyming word but instead leaves it unsaid, allowing our mind to fill in the blanks.
And I completely understand what you mean by voice being a huge part of the experience. Callahan's deep baritone adds a huge texture to his often gentle music (the tracks I listened to in your post were more electric, but his voice still dominates and resonates). I feel the same way about Mark Lanegan's voice that reeks of whisky, cigarettes, pain, and a life filled with trauma and addiction. Lanegan's voice becomes the passport that transports us to his (and our) dark and uncomfortable spaces. I don't know as much about Callahan's life as I do Lanegan's, but I agree it is deep but more gentle and soothing.
Thanks for the detailed comment, Michael, and for recognising that this did, indeed, become a labour of love. I suppose it was only once I'd started writing it that I realised I had quite a bit to say about Bill Callahan and what is now approaching thirty years of listening to his music. Like my response to your Radiohead-on-Later post, I was surprised just how long this music had been in my life and also, I guess, how I hadn't really tried to make sense of it until quite recently.
'Truth Serum' is a great song, and I like that whole album. Its opening track, 'Feather by Feather', sounds now like a template of the kind of slow country burners Callahan would go on to specialise in the later albums, while the rest of the album has a good share of the spikier kind of pieces he often did as Smog. Then again, I guess there were always one or two of those in all the Smog albums, and 'Chosen One' would also fall into that category. Plus: more bird and horse references!
Lanegan's a good comparison and I'm in interested in that tension (if it is one) between a writing/singing voice that ventures into darker territory and one that settles in a seemingly safer space. I mention that because one of the criticisms I've become aware of in online commentary on Callahan's later work (and it's also come up in conversation with friends who are longtime BC/Smog fans) is that he has become less interesting as he has focussed more on telling stories about domesticity, family and settling down. I don't agree with those criticisms, and that's partly why I wanted to write at length about the songcraft rather than focussing only on themes. I had planned t make this more explicit by mentioning the recent critiques in the post, but that would have made it even longer and perhaps more reactionary than I wanted it to be.
Another deep dive that has introduced me to newer material by Callahan I have yet to explore. I will no doubt return to it as I investigate the work you discuss that I am unfamiliar with and this new live LP. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and the obvious labor of love this piece has been.
My favorite song by Smog is "Truth Serum" from his 'Supper' album. I love the sense of play, yet there is also a profoundness in the questions he asks throughout the tune. But that is going back now. I haven't kept up with his discography, but the albums I own I really enjoy. I think I told you this before, but I discovered Callahan via an early Flaming Lips EP from 1994 called 'Providing Needles For Your Balloons.' On it, they do a Callahan song called "Chosen One." At the time, I was a big Lips fan, and if they liked Callahan, I needed to check him out.
I also really like your section on rhyme. It made me think of the wonderful song by Love, "Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale," where Arthur Lee never mentions the rhyming word but instead leaves it unsaid, allowing our mind to fill in the blanks.
And I completely understand what you mean by voice being a huge part of the experience. Callahan's deep baritone adds a huge texture to his often gentle music (the tracks I listened to in your post were more electric, but his voice still dominates and resonates). I feel the same way about Mark Lanegan's voice that reeks of whisky, cigarettes, pain, and a life filled with trauma and addiction. Lanegan's voice becomes the passport that transports us to his (and our) dark and uncomfortable spaces. I don't know as much about Callahan's life as I do Lanegan's, but I agree it is deep but more gentle and soothing.
Thanks for the detailed comment, Michael, and for recognising that this did, indeed, become a labour of love. I suppose it was only once I'd started writing it that I realised I had quite a bit to say about Bill Callahan and what is now approaching thirty years of listening to his music. Like my response to your Radiohead-on-Later post, I was surprised just how long this music had been in my life and also, I guess, how I hadn't really tried to make sense of it until quite recently.
'Truth Serum' is a great song, and I like that whole album. Its opening track, 'Feather by Feather', sounds now like a template of the kind of slow country burners Callahan would go on to specialise in the later albums, while the rest of the album has a good share of the spikier kind of pieces he often did as Smog. Then again, I guess there were always one or two of those in all the Smog albums, and 'Chosen One' would also fall into that category. Plus: more bird and horse references!
Lanegan's a good comparison and I'm in interested in that tension (if it is one) between a writing/singing voice that ventures into darker territory and one that settles in a seemingly safer space. I mention that because one of the criticisms I've become aware of in online commentary on Callahan's later work (and it's also come up in conversation with friends who are longtime BC/Smog fans) is that he has become less interesting as he has focussed more on telling stories about domesticity, family and settling down. I don't agree with those criticisms, and that's partly why I wanted to write at length about the songcraft rather than focussing only on themes. I had planned t make this more explicit by mentioning the recent critiques in the post, but that would have made it even longer and perhaps more reactionary than I wanted it to be.