A few highlights: in 1995 and 2005, respectively, he released the restrained but incendiary Wild Love and clear-headed yet mercurial A River Ain't Too Much to Love (under the Smog moniker). With 2009’s Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, Callahan emerged as the anxious stoic. 2019’s Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest dripped with wistful pragmatism. His last album, 2022’s YTI⅃AƎЯ, spotlighted Callahan at his most Buddhistic, working with and dismantling conventions around time, “knowing”, and the idea of self.
The words Callahan and maudlin may not belong in the same sentence; however, with his latest album, My Days of 58, Callahan is particularly unsentimental. His lyrics often bring to mind lab or field notes. His signature deadpan delivery is consistently elusive. The instrumentation sounds unscripted, largely improvised. In this way, 58 captures Callahan at his most unguarded and unrehearsed. If YTI⅃AƎЯ – and various tracks from earlier sets – showed Callahan romanticizing the idea of nonattachment, 58 captures his introspections as he occasionally savors being nonattached.
Consider: 58 stashed in a time capsule prior to homo sapiens going extinct. What would Callahan’s album teach the next round of visitors about humans? How would it add to their impressions re: human psychology? In an era characterized by self-aggrandizement and hyper-consumerism, would 58 – more about self-erasure and asceticism – land as a potent counterexample to the period’s decadence? A confirmation that humans vary greatly and are disparately motivated?
“Driving through the dark / arriving in the rain / to sing my song / all over again”, Callahan offers on opener “Why Do Men Sing?”, metaphorizing the unknown while questioning the repetitive nature of life. While Callahan has rarely occurred as a confessionalist, here he goes all-in playing the role of observer or voyeur. In addition, needless to say, he doesn’t answer the title’s question, but lets us reach our own conclusions. Drums, guitar runs, and supporting vocals flesh out the track. While the music tilts toward a fullish sound, Callahan, vocally and lyrically, exemplifies minimalism.
“The Man I’m Supposed to Be” oscillates between minor- and major-key settings, while Callahan drops Zennish observations and resolutions (“I’ve been living too long in my head”, “From now on, I start living my life / like the next day I’ll be dead). “Lonely City”, meanwhile, is Callahan’s love song to Austin, Texas, where he lives, though he also uses “the city” to represent his own inner landscape. “I go all around the world / first thing I do / when I get back to you / is walk around and see what’s new”, he offers, guitar trills juxtaposed with folksy strums. Is he nostalgic? Curious? Accepting change? All of the above, none of the above.
“Now I’m pushing sixty”, he notes on “West Texas”, pondering the ultimate inconsequentiality of a life, but with neither fear nor grief (maybe with a dab of very dry humor). We want to know how Callahan feels about aging, and he isn’t necessarily forthcoming. As unpindownable as he has been throughout his oeuvre, he is, here, more inscrutable than ever.
On “Highway Born”, accompanied by tinkly piano and wandering pedal-steel parts, he addresses the adventure and mystery of touring (“I love the highway, I suppose I always will / Feels like I was born there and am being born still”). Closer “The World Is Still”, with its breathy horns and delicate accents, evokes quiet and completeness, life slowing down to a single moment, a single breath, a single crystalline insight (“Nothing has changed and nothing ever will”). Callahan, though, refrains from judgement – positive or negative – instead simply relaying his experience as it is and as it arises.
In Buddhism, the Pali word annata refers to the notion that there is no independent or enduring self. Identity is an illusion. With 58, Callahan seems attuned to this concept. Though still working with the materials of human life – relationships, states of mind, creative impulses – he recognizes the transience and/or emptiness at the heart of everything. The search for wisdom has become Callahan’s raison d’etre.
