Bill released Red Apple Falls in 1997. This had a picture of a fancy old grey English kind of building on that makes me think of Cindy's song The Land Of Grey And Castles. The lyrics of Bill's records become more abstract and symbolic from this point on. Looking back it probably took away one of the only ways that Bill communicated his feelings to other people. As a loner I get the picture he has very few or even no close friends.
Track 1 The Morning Paper is about how there’s bad news in the newspaper.
Track 2 Blood Red Bird is about someone being woken up in the middle of the night by the cry of a blood red bird, they have a garden of thorns, the bird is in the woods injured, then the man asks what hand did it? He could have done it with two fingers. Then its about having sex and the two people are just hurting each other by doing this. Then it says “Like an arrow I was only passing through” which is weird as he dated Cindy Dall for a while.
Track 3 Red Apples is about going to the river to see the widow. He sleeps in her arms and he gives her nothing in return which is similar to how in I Break Horses he doesn’t tend to the women. Then the ghost of her husband pulls up a cart of apples which is bizarre, and also makes it like Bill Callahan is doing the affair and cuckolding the ghost husband with his cart of apples.
Track 4 I Was A Stranger depicts Bill's life of moving from place to place as a stranger, but also an indie musician who was becoming more recognised. He talks about him being not just a stranger but strange: “I’m a stranger, they don’t come much stranger.” Like Bill previously asserts that women for want to be hit and broken, in this song Bill blames people for believing him “why did you believe all every word I said why did you believe believe a stranger?”. He then blames women for letting him stare at them: “why do you women in this town let me look at you so bold, when you have seen what I was in the last town? I was worse than a stranger I was well known" referring to his growing fame as an indie musician.
Track 5 To Be Of Use is about Bill's sexual functioning issues, and also that in general he is not a useful person.
Track 6 Red Apple Falls is about how Bill is not a good boyfriend and too detached and not intimate: “The widow says it is hard to live with a man like me The widow says its hard to live with the lonely version of love I give”. This song talks about his family again saying his parents “try to do themselves in inch by inch day by day” and it refers to I Break Horses “The widow says I broke her first”. It says they can’t get past the affair. It does not mention her ghost horse husband with his cart of apples in this one.
Track 7 Ex-Con is about how Bill feels like a criminal, something we have heard him say on several other songs by this point, such as the song where he feels like Travis Bickle on Julius Caesar. This song is also about his social awkwardness, as if his social problems are linked to his thoughts of criminality: “Whenever I get dressed up I feel like an ex-con trying to make good’. He feels like he could be a robber or a kidnapper. These types of thoughts are called “intrusive thoughts” and people with them need psychological treatment. He says alone at home he feels like he’s a part of the community, but in the street he feels like a robot. This song and other songs on Red Apple Falls seems to be the start of Bill Callahan’s obsessive use of the word “river”, and it seems to be connected to Cindy since in this record the widow lives by the river, although he later links it to heroin and methadone.
Track 8 Inspirational is again about how his relationship with Cindy is not working after the affair, and says he is going to have to leave her even though she is "unleaveable".
Track 9 Finer Days is the obligatory happy ending song, now he is happy again. He is negative about his friends and says his friends want to drag him down again, so now he has another reason to be a loner “isolated in these fine fine days”. At times he seems to not want to be a loner, but again and again Bill's songs return to him actually choosing to be a loner, such as My Shell and I Break Horses. Bill goes on to remain unlucky in love for a very long time after Red Apple Falls.
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