Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle

Our top panel of Musos give their verdict on Bill Callahan’s latest effort.

RORY GIBB 1-3:

Bill Callahan’s album opening tracks are never anything less than spectacular; ‘Jim Cain’ is no exception, and sets the tone appropriately. A cascading guitar line ushers in a sweet plucked melody and his rich baritone: “I started tellin’ the story/Without knowing the end”. While 2007’s Woke On A Whaleheart explored surprisingly light territory, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle comes in the wake of a break-up and sees a return to more contemplative form.

‘Eid Ma Clack Shaw’ is uncharacteristically personal – “Love is the king of the beasts/And when it gets hungry it must kill to eat” – and is as unsettling musically as lyrically, piano stabs and strumming offset by thumping bass ripped straight from ‘Psycho Killer’. Despite its thematic deviation, Sometimes… expands upon the fuller instrumentation of the last record and shuns the sparseness of Callahan’s early records as Smog. Deft string arrangements drift in and out, bolstered by washes of brass to create an early album highlight, and one of his finest songs yet.

Eastern melodies usher in ‘The Wind And The Dove’, building minor key tension until Callahan’s voice lifts above the chorus. This break in the clouds ends as suddenly as it arrives in a flurry of strings. Throughout Smog’s earlier albums his voice remained high above the mix, uncomfortably close, as though it came from inside your own head; here it weaves back and forth between guitar and string section, receding into the middle distance before swooping to the fore. The effect is to create a sense of fragile intimacy during the quieter moments, making those few louder moments all the more startling.

PETER HARRIS 4-6:

I can imagine Bill Callahan listening back to an early cut of ‘Rococo Zephyr’, muttering to himself “We’re gonna need a bigger intro” hence the welcome addition of the Jaws-theme-like stabs of ‘cello. The track has a forlorn romanticism about it and is filled with Callahan’s penchant for similes and metaphors based around nature. Warmth emanates from the tone, lyrics and melody of the song and isn’t dampened by Callahan’s reluctant optimism where he “used to be sorta blind, now I can sorta see.”

We’re in full on nature based allegory mode with ‘Too Many Birds’. Callahan uses a simple bird metaphor to convey a story of someone not being able to find a home which could easily sound trite coming from another artist but it’s Callahan’s knack for simple understatement that makes all of this successful. This is summed up in the use of a memorable lyrical mechanic where each repetition of a line adds a new word, evolving the meaning of said line at more than one stage.

‘My Friend’ surprises with an obtrusive, heavily pounded drum beat though Callahan still manages to instil a cosy warmth, growl-whispering that he will always love “my friend”, sounding, in the process, like stand-up Rich Hall’s redneck alter-ego, Otis Lee Crenshaw (look up Bag Lady on Youtube). I wonder if this track is meant for recently departed girlfriend, Joanna Newsom – does she know he loves her? Ys, I think she does.

THOMAS BOLTON 7-9:

‘All Thoughts Are Prey To Some Beast’ has real Smog-era atmosphere. Right from the first line, “The leafless tree looked like a brain”, you know this is going to be very good indeed. A yearning Morricone slide guitar is backed by rattling drums, while the lyrics are full of desert imagery, eagles shrieking, “the sky king” and “wings of bone”. Then halfway through, the electric guitar kicks in and Callahan is crooning “Sweet desire of soft thoughts return to me”. He doesn’t do straightforward meaning, but somehow you know he’s singing about being dead.

‘Invocation Of Ratiocination’ is a short instrumental track, with eerie, wordless, female voices wailing over some Michael Nyman piano and possibly a cricket chafing in the background. It doesn’t entirely justify its title. The final track, ‘Faith/Void’, is also simple but weighed down with more momentousness than any one track can handle. There’s something remarkably naïve and raw at the heart of Bill Callahan’s music that can be both repulsive as well as attractive and repulsive. Here he choruses, ‘It’s time to put God away’, over and over again during the course of 9.44 envervating minutes, making God sound strangely like a toy he’s been playing with.

Beautiful, but sickly, there’s something very off-putting about this song. I prefer his music when he takes a step back.