There is a line running through Bill Callahan’s songwriting that is similar in approach as nature writing, one that was previously referenced in an earlier Recliner Notes post. Another good example of Callahan working in this mode is the song “Spring” from his 2013 album Dream River: The song opens with a riff on electricContinue reading “Spring”
Tag Archives: Bill Callahan
Bill Callahan in Asheville, NC – February 26-27
With the release of his album YTILAER in fall 2022, Bill Callahan shared during an interview with Paste the instigation behind writing the batch of songs featured on the record: “I started becoming more interested in rock music again, so I started thinking more in terms of a band type of record….It seemed like, afterContinue reading “Bill Callahan in Asheville, NC – February 26-27”
Drover
In 2011, Bill Callahan released his most critically-acclaimed album, Apocalypse. Recorded in the border town of Tornillo, Texas, the tone of the album is informed by Callahan’s relocation to Texas a few years before as he recalled in a 2022 interview with Uproxx: “When I first moved to Texas, I always felt like I wasContinue reading “Drover”
Eid Ma Clack Shaw
“Eid Ma Clack Shaw,” the second song on Bill Callahan’s 2009 album Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, starts with minor chords on a piano: An ominous beginning to be sure! Callahan sings the song’s first line a cappella: “Working through death’s pain.” It’s a heavy line to match the foreboding nature of theContinue reading “Eid Ma Clack Shaw”
Jim Cain
In April 2009, Bill Callahan released the second album under his own name called Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle. Asked about the significance of the title by Interview, Callahan replied: “It’s a phrase that I thought of a few years ago, and wasn’t sure what to do with it. I held onto it.Continue reading “Jim Cain”
From the Rivers to the Ocean
After 15 years of releasing music professionally under the name Smog, Bill Callahan put out an album using his own name: 2007’s Woke on a Whaleheart. The shift in names was an intentional act by Callahan as he told Pitchfork in 2007: “I have narrowed my focus with the name change. There is no nameContinue reading “From the Rivers to the Ocean”
The Well
In his 1981 essay “On Writing,” the great short story writer Raymond Carver wrote the following: “It’s possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring—with immense, evenContinue reading “The Well”
Say Valley Maker
The time before the release of 2005’s A River Ain’t Too Much to Love was a period of transition for Bill Callahan. Looking back on that time, he recalled the following to Stephen Hyden: “I moved out of Chicago to Austin, Texas because I was trying to make some big changes in my life. IContinue reading “Say Valley Maker”
Feather by Feather
From the beginning of Bill Callahan’s career when he recorded under the name Smog until the present releasing music with his given name, Callahan has been signed to the record label Drag City. In the early 2000s, while still using the Smog moniker, Callahan was one of three white male recording artists signed to DragContinue reading “Feather by Feather”
Teenage Spaceship
In the year 1999, the singer, songwriter, and guitar player Bill Callahan had released six full-length albums and a number of cassettes and EPs under the name Smog. Smog was not an actual band, but rather Callahan with an as-needed rotating cast of musicians. Smog’s earliest releases were abrasive and jarring, mixing noise experiments withContinue reading “Teenage Spaceship”
Recliner Notes 