Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Supper

Bill Callahan released the LP Supper in 2003.  The song Feather By Feather has lyrics about an enemy — one of Bill's top themes — “if you’re losing your wings feather by feather/Love the way they whip away/On the wind” “When they make the movie of your life/They’re going to have to ask you/To do your own stunts/Because nobody nobody nobody/Could pull off the same shit as you/And still come out alright.” “It’s Ali versus Clay/Both pummelling away/A champ always fights themself.” Butterflies Drowned in Wine is about a character going into town where he has  usual social issues, another one of Bill's big themes across his work — “I’m going to talk to some people there, forget everything I’m told, in one ear out the other”. Morality is like Dress Sexy At My Funeral where he imagines being married, and in this one he thinks he would have affairs. It is sort of notable that in his early career he was jealous of men having affairs with his girlfriends all the time, and then at this point when he has become more successful in the 2000s he depicts himself as the one cheating. Which is a bit similar to the song on Red Apple Falls where he imagines the widow is cheating on her ghost husband with him. Vessel In Vain is another song about being useless. Truth Serum is a song where he pretends to love a woman and then says love is in an empty box, and she says if the box is empty nothing is in it, which means he doesn’t love her really. This song also shows how he sees the truth is not something clear — "truth is something in between”. The song Our Anniversary continues this theme of a not loving relationship, where the woman forces him to spend their anniversary together by hiding his keys. He likens the two of them and their relationship to the thriving weeds he curses in the garden.

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