Callahan started out as a highly experimental artist, using substandard instruments and recording equipment. His early songs often nearly lacked melodic structure and were clumsily played on poorly tuned guitars (possibly influenced by Jandek, whom Callahan admired), resulting in the dissonant sounds on his self-released cassettes and debut album Sewn to the Sky. Much of his early output was instrumental, a stark contrast to the lyrical focus of his later work. Apparently, he used lo-fi techniques not primarily because of an aesthetic preference but because he didn't have any other possibility to make music. Once he signed a contract with Drag City, he also started to use recording studios and a greater variety of instruments for his records.
From 1993 to 2000, Callahan's recordings grew more and more "professional" sounding, with more instruments, and a higher sound quality. In this period he recorded two albums with the influential producer Jim O'Rourke and Tortoise's John McEntire, and collaborated with Neil Hagerty. After 2000's Dongs of Sevotion, Callahan began moving back to a slightly simpler instrumentation and recording style, while retaining the more consistent songwriting style he had developed over the years. This shift is apparent in albums such as Rain on Lens, Supper, and A River Ain't Too Much to Love.
Smog's songs are often based on simple, repetitive structures, consisting of a simple chord progression repeated for the duration of the entire song. His singing is strikingly characterized by his baritone voice and a style of delivery without being over-emotional. Melodically and lyrically he tends to eschew the verse-chorus approach favoured by many contemporary songwriters, preferring instead a more free-form approach relying less on melodic and lyrical repetition. Themes in Callahan's lyrics include relationships, moving, horses, teenagers, bodies of water, and more recently, politics. His generally dispassionate delivery of lyrics and dark irony often obfuscate complex emotional and lyrical twists and turns. Critics have generally characterized his music as depressing and intensely introverted, with one critic describing it as "a peep-show view into an insular world of alienation." Despite this there is also a broad swathe of joy throughout Callahan's work and more attentive critics have picked up on Callahan's tendency to black humour, a tendency often confused with a depressed mental state or a genuine obsession with the morbid, a confusion no doubt caused by his deadpan vocals.
Cat Power (Chan Marshall) recorded Callahan's song Bathysphere on her 1996 album What Would the Community Think. She covered him again in 2000 on her Covers Record doing the song Red Apples.
Smog's Cold Blooded Old Times appears on the High Fidelity soundtrack. The song Vessel in Vain (from Supper) was also used on the soundtrack of the independent British film Dead Man's Shoes in 2004. In October 2007, Cadillac released a commercial which featured Smog's song Held and Bob Dylan driving a 2008 Escalade through the desert.
As of 2007 he lives in Austin, Texas where he released Woke on a Whaleheart. It was his first record release as Bill Callahan.
Spring
Bill Callahan Lyrics
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Out of sight
A power is putting them away
A power that moves things neurotically
Like a widow with a rosary
And everything is aweing and tired of praise
And mountains don't need my accolades
Like death warmed over
And the bantam is preening madly waiting for the light of day
And all I want to do is to make love to you
With a careless, careless mind
With a careless, careless mind
Who cares what's mine?
With a careless, careless mind
We call it spring though things are dying
Connected to the land like a severed hand
And I see our house on a hill on a clear blue morning
When I am out walking
My eyes are still forming the door I walk through
And I see, the true spring is in you
The true spring is in you
My wide worlds collide
And mind wide words collide
And seasons collide
Oh scoping
And all I want to do
All I want to do is to make love to you in the fertile dirt
In the fertile dirt
With a careless mind
With a careless, careless, careless mind
In Bill Callahan's song "Spring," he reflects on the transience and contradictions of the season. He starts by describing the wind pushing the clouds out of sight and the power that moves things neurotically. This sets a contemplative tone for the song as he compares the power of nature with the fragility of human life. He then observes that even mountains don't need our accolades, and that everything is tired of praise, giving a sense of the insignificance of human ego in the vastness of the natural world.
However, despite the darker aspects of spring, Callahan holds out hope in the form of the bantam preening madly and waiting for the light of day. The spring is described as looking bad lately, like death warmed over, creating a sense of melancholy and disillusionment. But Callahan is able to see the beauty of the season by connecting it with the person he loves, saying that the true spring is in them. The final section of the song sees the seasons colliding as Callahan expresses his desire to make love to the person he loves with a careless mind in the fertile dirt.
Line by Line Meaning
The wind is pushing the clouds along
Nature is at work, pushing the clouds out of sight with a neurotic force
Out of sight
The clouds have disappeared from view, taken away by a powerful invisible force
A power is putting them away
An invisible force, greater than ourselves or the clouds, is moving them away
A power that moves things neurotically
This force moves things in a compulsive or frenzied manner, like the wind pushing away the clouds
Like a widow with a rosary
Just as a widow ingrains praying with her beads in her daily routine, nature has a compulsive way of attending to its tasks
And everything is aweing and tired of praise
Nature's activities are amazing to witness, yet they do not seek recognition or applause
And mountains don't need my accolades
The grandiosity and splendor of mountains surpasses any recognition one could give them
And spring looks bad lately anyway, like death warmed over
This spring season looks gloomy and dying, with a feeling of dread that overcomes the joy that it usually brings
And the bantam is preening madly waiting for the light of day
The small bantam bird is prancing around, waiting for the sunlight to come in full force
And all I want to do is to make love to you
The artist has a strong yearning to create something beautiful and meaningful with someone they love
With a careless, careless mind
They want to approach this with a carefree attitude, not bogged down by their mind's chatter
Who cares what's mine?
Ownership of things is not important, and they do not wish to clutter their minds with it
We call it spring though things are dying
Despite the bleak feeling, people still refer to this season as spring, which is associated with growth and rejuvenation because life goes on even as things are ending
Connected to the land like a severed hand
People are tied to the earth like a severed hand, with a longing to connect once more
And I see our house on a hill on a clear blue morning
The singer reflects on a time when everything felt joyful and bright
When I am out walking
During a stroll, they reminisce about the past
My eyes are still forming the door I walk through
Their eyesight is still playing tricks on them, imagining the door through which they pass
And I see, the true spring is in you
The singer acknowledges that real transformation occurs within people, not just the change of the season
My wide worlds collide
The singer's two separate worlds, physical and emotional, come together in a clash
And mind wide words collide
Their thoughts and ideas clash and compete for attention
And seasons collide
The current season collides with the artist's internal perception of it
Oh scoping
A moment of reflection before continuing the thought
All I want to do is to make love to you in the fertile dirt
The singer wants to join their lover in creation, both in the physical act and also in the metaphorical growth that takes place even in the dirt
With a careless mind, with a careless, careless, careless mind
The artist wants to approach this experience with a free spirit and a lack of concern about the details
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
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