Bill Callahan / Smog / (Smog)

Do y’all know the wonderful Eagle Flies with the Dove? Required reading for any Bill fan or thinking human.

eagleflieswiththedove:

Bill Callahan, “America!”

Yes, something as benign as watching David Letterman from your hotel room in Australia makes you homesick—because it’s a familiar voice, it’s a strong flavor of the culture, and that’s your culture, it’s what you swam in when you were growing up, there’s nothing you can do about it—but then America kind of sucks, too, and makes you angry sometimes and merely annoyed other times. It’s hard to allow the fondness and the critique to remain in tension; it requires nuance and risks others’ misunderstanding. How much easier to write a jingoistic anthem or a one-note political protest.

Reviews that call the song sarcastic get wrong the intention or the humor, I think. But it’s also possible that I am projecting more than usual, because at school I am always trying to hold difficult things together in this way, too.

The song takes a fun turn at “Everyone’s allowed a past they don’t care to mention”—the personal is political, right? It has the effect of referring you back to the album’s previous song, on which he sings, “It was me tearing out the baby’s breath.” Being allowed this past you don’t care to mention is a thematic statement here, suggesting that everyone has fucked up, but it doesn’t mean they’re not lovable: “Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iran, Native America,” but, still, “I wish I was on the next flight back to America.”

Oh Bill, you’re so mature.