Bill Callahan is coming to Soho on Friday, June 17th (courtesy of Club Mercy) in support of his fine new album, “Apocalypse,” on Drag City.  We highly recommend you get to Soho and catch Callahan, who is one of our more prolific and profound (though subtly so) songwriters.  We’ve loved Callahan’s writing and delivery for a long, long time in his various permutations (particularly on Smog, but also solo).

Now comes the first song and video off the new album:  Riding for the Feeling (lyrics below the video). The song is a languid, spare beauty.  The video features a graphic ski jumper in flight above a mountain range with no gravity or gravitas in sight.  The lyrics and video suggest that nothing of this world can bring this jumper down.  We love the concept of “riding for the feeling,” whether because it’s a glorious day in which you can do no wrong (“riding without a chain,” as cyclists say), or whether you just need to let fly and end some analysis-paralysis, or whether you feel temporarily dead to the world and need to ride to regain some feeling and lift.  All are possible.  Don’t give up on the ride.

“It’s never easy to say goodbye
To the faces
So rarely do we see another one
So close and so long

I asked the room if I’d said enough
No one really answered
They just said, “Don’t go, don’t go”
Well all this leaving is never ending

I kept hoping for one more question
Or for someone to say,
“Who do you think you are?”
So I could tell them

With intensity, the drop evaporates by law
In conclusion, leaving is easy
When you’ve got some place you need to be
I’m giving up this gig for another season

With the TV on mute
I’m listening back to the tapes
On the hotel bed
My my my apocalypse

I realized I had said very little about ways or wheels
Or riding for the feeling
Riding for the feeling
Is the fastest way to reach the shore

On water or land
Riding for the feeling

What if I had stood there at the end
And said again and again and again and again and again
An answer to every question
Riding for the feeling”