Nachdem ich das Pitchfork-Feature (Bill Callahan the Family Man) gelesen habe, habe ich meine Erwartungen an das Album erst einmal gedämpft.
Zitate daraus:
Where his last few albums unfurled painstakingly, like serene novellas, Shepherd is more like a scrapbook, filled with memories, sketches, jokes. The songs are shorter, and the guy singing them seems somehow closer—a byproduct of the album’s all-acoustic setting, and Callahan’s newly direct approach to writing. It’s what he calls a “real-life record.”
Callahan tells me he’s trying to be “more of an open book” in general, and many of these songs seem jarringly domestic coming from one of modern folk music’s most elusive wanderers. Throughout Shepherd, he uses the lowest, oakiest reaches of his baritone to acknowledge the renovators working on his home, or to briefly summarize a scene from “Sesame Street,” or to say things like, “I got married/To my wife/She’s lovely.”
(…)
I point out how surprising the setting of the new record is at first, hearing him tell stories confined to small spaces, with the wilderness far in the distance. He nods. “There’s a lot about ‘the house’ on the record. Kids need a house. They love routine.”
(…)
A lyric from the new record, in a song called “Son of the Sea,” reads, “The house is full of life; life is change.” “I don’t know very many records that are about being happily married and having a kid,” Callahan tells me, citing Carly Simon as a source of inspiration for Shepherd. “I just wanted to prove that your life doesn’t end if you settle down.”
(…)
As a new dad, Callahan has been thinking of his own childhood, and what he wants to do differently. (…) His philosophy is contained in “Tugboats and Tumbleweeds,” the new album’s penultimate song, which offers advice from father to son. Among the wisdom: Solitude can be illuminating, as can wandering, just as long as you don’t mislead someone you love. To prove his point, the song ends with his pledge of commitment: “You’re my tugboat,” he sings sweetly.
Zum Thema „Familie“ gehört allerdings auch ein Song über den Tod seiner Mutter („Circles“): “I made a circle, I guess/When I folded her hands across her chest.”
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To Hell with Poverty