Lately, it seems like Bill Callahan is into singing about the natural progression of things: fruit that changes color and leaves that grow and dissolve (“Another Song”); being a somewhat formed person in your thirties after years spent being unformed in your twenties (“35”); the salt and the soil (“Pigeons”).
On Gold Record, his latest for Drag City and the follow-up to last year’s wonderful double LP, Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, we hear Callahan telling stories from the perspective of others — characters, if you will — while simultaneously interjecting his own perspective into the mix.
Take the opening track, for example. In “Pigeons,” Callahan is a limo driver who just picked up a pair of newlyweds. When the groom notices that Callahan himself is a married man, he asks him for some advice, to which Callahan replies, “When you are dating you only see each other and the rest of us can go to hell / But when you are married, you’re married to the whole wide world.” We know from Shepherd that Callahan is somewhat of a wife-guy, but it’s deeper than that. “But when I see people about to marry / I become something of a plenipotentiary / I just think it’s good, as you probably can tell,” he sings. To Callahan, marriage is a sign of growth and a stripping of one’s selfishness; a natural progression; the salt and the soil.
Lyrically, there are many other gems spread out through the 10 tracks on Gold Record. “It was nice to know that my life had been lived before / But I can’t see myself in the books that I read anymore,” he proclaims on “35.” Though it sounds like a bummer at first, Callahan doesn’t really view it that way. “I think it’s a good thing to have that feeling of not connecting necessarily with art,” he said in a track-by-track for Apple Music, “because it prompts you to work on your own.”
Fans of Callahan’s work as Smog might recognize the album’s sixth track, “Let’s Move to the Country,” from 1999’s Knock Knock. This newly performed version serves as an update to the classic album’s opening track, finishing the previously unfinished lines “starting a (family),” and “having a (baby).” He even tacks on “Maybe two!” for good measure. It’s one of those rare cases where a re-recording of a song actually serves a thematic purpose and isn’t merely a distraction.
Musically, the songs are what we’ve come to expect from Callahan given his output over the last decade. Acoustic guitars are second to Callahan’s booming baritone voice and the drumming is sparse throughout. There’s a really fantastic, somewhat unexpected walking bassline at the end of “Another Song.” Horns are the latest addition to the mix, fueled by Callahan’s appreciation and love of jazz music.
The songs on Gold Record were released individually week-by-week on streaming platforms, and each song ends with roughly 10-15 seconds of silence — perhaps suggesting that these songs should be taken as individual thoughts, unlike the incredibly cohesive narrative of Shepherd. Gold Record dares you to get lost in its mystery because it knows damn well that you can’t with Callahan as your limo driver; your tour guide; the train conductor. The result is his finest work yet, a truly impeccable collection of songs that is as comfortable as it is daring.
