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Aug 17, 2020 By Samantha Small Bill Callahan

Last year Bill Callahan released Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest—his first album in six years. Now, he’s got another coming out September 4th: Gold Record, out via Drag City. And as said in the “Cowboy Commercial”—“Now he’s putting out a song every week on the Internet.” This week we have “Cowboy.” Listen below.

Callahan is “living like a cowboy,” on his new single. He’s eating only tortillas, beans, and water and taking the occasional trip to town. The sweet melody is accompanied by a sorrowful trumpet as Callahan realizes that most “cowboys” are just found in the movie. “And off to dream that trail you ride,” he sings.

Last week Callahan shared “Breakfast” and released a specialty coffee brand along with it. Prior to that he 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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