Fractionals

Smog is not a band I feel compelled to buy lots of albums from. I liked the few of Bill Callahan's songs that I'd downloaded, and so when a copy of Rain On Lens showed up in a local store used, I picked it up. And I love it, but for some reason have no desire to get anything else Bill Callahan has ever done. I'm not sure why. Rain On Lens certainly sounds self-contained, just under forty minutes and concerned, almost obsessively, with repetition.

'Song', right down to the generic title, is a perfect example. It's just shy of five minutes long, and the music follows the exact same pattern throughout. There's an initial guitar(?) part that sounds like someone playing an unamplified electric guitar, just the dull sound of the pick hitting clenched sound; there is an inexorable drum part. Once Callahan starts singing another electric guitar comes in, playing the same part over and over, and after every verse (there is no chorus) it plays a short vamp. Always the same thing.

But as captivating as I find all this (and I do - I _like_ repetition), it's Callahan's voice and lyrics that really hypnotize, that keep me riveted. I've seen few pictures of him, but Callahan always looks younger than I'd imagine, with his calm, quiet voice edging into deepness. Near the end of each verse here he sings "For some other cause", and his voice near the end dips just a bit lower, and a shiver runs up my spine. Because of his lyrics. If you take out the repetition in some songs, Bill Callahan is one of the few lyricists I would read as straight poetry. And while ranges his subject matter, his subjects are always sinister, full of evil, death, sex, tainted love, and deeply scary protagonists. As such, I feel the lyrics to 'Song' need to be put down full here:

I'm a bit like a soldier
In the way I wear no uniform
And choose not to fight
And fight all night
For some other cause

Have mercy

I'm a bit like the grave digger
Who wields no shovel
And digs no hole
But leaves the bodies to rot
In the places that they stand
For some other cause

Have mercy

I'm a bit like the pack mule
Carrying no load
Into the canyons of your jive
For some other cause

Have mercy

I'm a bit like the freelance fence painter
Who drinks ice tea you brought him
Then eyes your backside as you leave
For some other cause

Have mercy

I'm a bit like the peephole
That falls in love with all the eyes
That look through
Watching major things unfold
From minor flaws
For some other cause

Have mercy

He drawls his way through each verse, and then each "Have mercy" is short, clipped. Reluctant. The odd bit of lightness (in this case, the "canyons of your jive") bit is always mordant in delivery. And those goddamned guitars spiral into your brain. They don't gain in volume as they go on, but it _feels_ like they do. It sounds like something that's slowly gaining in intentisty until it is unbearable.

And then it stops.

All of Callahan's songs, except for the ones with two or three lines, stand up to being read. Here's a good site which has pretty much anything he's done, and everything from Wild Love on is pretty consistently good, with the odd exception. I wish someone would print the good ones up in a nice package. There are bad things in the world, and Bill Callahan is our poet laureate of them.

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