Just in time for the holidays, Bill Callahan has shared a surprise gift: a new single and video for “Lonely City,” the second track unveiled from his forthcoming album, My Days of 58, due out February 27th. The song, featuring Callahan’s trademark contemplative strumming and the welcome addition of Jerry David DeCicca on tambourine, is a love letter to the urban landscape.
The accompanying video is a powerful visual collage assembled by renowned street photographer Daniel Arnold, who utilised over 15 years of his work to bring the song’s world to life—the first time Arnold’s photography has been used in a music video.
Bill Callahan shared the following on the song:
“Lonely City is a song I’ve been meaning to write for decades. It has been inside me that long. I tend to focus my writing on humans and the spirit within. So writing about concrete and steel felt like a no go. Like I’m going to write a song about a car next?
But of course cities are made by humans so they are human, too.
You have a relationship with them, like friends.
You get mad at them when you get a parking ticket, you love them when they offer you a nice meal.
It’s a song acknowledging all this.”
My Days of 58 features Callahan’s trusted touring band—Matt Kinsey (guitar), Jim White (drums), and Dustin Laurenzi (saxophone)—and is poised to be another classic slice of lived-in storytelling. His core musicians are the group that toured for 2022’s REALITY: guitarist Matt Kinsey, saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi and drummer Jim White.