In a career hardly plagued with lows, Bill Callahan has been on a hot streak recently. Since 2019’s Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, the Maryland-born songwriter has shared his beguiling meditations on being changed by parenthood and marriage, while his music has loosened and expanded accordingly. The latter is in part down to the chemistry that Callahan has formed with his live band – guitarist Matt Kinsey, saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi and drummer Jim White also of the Dirty Three – audible on the extraordinary 2024 live album Resuscitate! It’s this ensemble and their facility for improv that powers Callahan’s forthcoming solo record, My Days of 58, the first tastes of which offer up some Callahan wisdom.
The song Lonely City, he said, was an odd one for him to write, being generally more concerned with “humans and the spirit within”.
So writing about concrete and steel felt like a no go. Like I’m going to write a song about a car next? But of course cities are made by humans so they are human, too. You have a relationship with them, like friends.
You can ask Callahan about his relationship to cities or his new record when he sits for the Guardian’s reader interview in early January – or his ever-exploratory current listening, the recent reissue of his classic 2001 Peel Session as Smog, whether he remembers anything of his family’s years living in Knaresbrough during his childhood, his perhaps unlikely seeming collaboration with Noah Cyrus (sister of Miley) or his vibey covers project with Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Maybe he’ll let on which British musician Protest Song is really about (also unlikely). Post your questions in the comments by noon GMT on 5 January and the best responses will appear in a future edition of Film & Music.
