Album Review: Bill Callahan – Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest

Bill Callahan has made a living singing about isolation and restlessness for almost three decades. However, after the release of his 2013 album, Dream River, the prolific songwriter grew quiet. He married the next year, and became a parent soon afterwards. And while the myth of the tortured artist has been thoroughly debunked, the six-year gap between records found fans and Callahan alike both wondering if he was busy living happily ever after. Yes and no – the title of his newest record, Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest, may suggest a sense of pastoral tranquillity, but the role of the shepherd is also one of enduring vigilance. 

Meditations on life, death, family, and songwriting – and the intersections between them all – constitute the album. These are not all necessarily new themes for Callahan to explore – instead, what’s new is his perspective towards them. Tugboats And Tumbleweeds is open-hearted life advice to his son, and songs like Watch Me Get Married (“to the immensity”) are reminiscent of Lou Reed’s renewed commitment to life on his wildly uneven and immensely enjoyable 1984 album, New Sensations. “True love is not magic,” Callahan sings halfway through this sprawling double album, “It’s certainty.” However, the song’s title is What Comes After Certainty? and his answer to this question is both simple and confounding: “A world of mystery.”