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Aug 10, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Bill Callahan

Bill Callahan has been sharing a new song every Monday morning in the run up to the release of his new album, Gold Record—due out September 4 via Drag City—and here’s this week’s selection: “Breakfast.” Callahan sings about laying in bed while his wife makes breakfast. Listen below.

Callahan and Drag City have partnered with the coffee roasters Four Letter Word for a special coffee blend tied to the song and named after it. According to a press release, “Breakfast” the coffee is “a single origin from Colombia produced by Guillermo Rojas, with a nicely complex profile: much like the song itself, the coffee starts out strong, with ‘healthy fruit’ (juicy bright green apple notes), then ends righteously with a bittersweet desert (bittersweet dark chocolate s’mores with coconut sugar, y’all!).” You can buy the coffee here.

Last week Callahan shared “Let’s Move to the Country,” a cover of a song by his old band Smog. Before that came “The Mackenzies,” “Protest Song,” “35,” and “Pigeons,” which humorously opened with Callahan declaring “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” “Pigeons” was one of our Songs of the Week. Callahan also shared “Another Song,” a lovely melody about afternoon delight, meaning playing hooky from work to make love to your partner.

Gold Record is the follow-up to 2019’s Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, released last June via Drag City. That was his first album in six years, since 2013’s Dream River, so Gold River represents a quick turnaround time for Callahan. Following Dream River Callahan got married and had a kid and after those big and happy life changes he had trouble tapping into his usual songwriting well. It seems like the songwriting is flowing more freely now.

While prepping to go on a long tour for Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest and contemplating being away from his family for a long time, he pulled out some sketches from his notebooks and finished some of them. These are the images you see in each music video for Gold Record. The basics of Gold Record were recorded live with Matt Kinsey on guitar and Jaime Zurverza on bass.

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