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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
As told to Laura Snapes

Singer-songwriter Bill Callahan: ‘I’m not a craftsman – I’m more of a drunk professor who likes coincidence and mistakes’

Bill Callahan in 2025.
‘I’m precise about lyrics but everything else is: throw it at the wall’ … Bill Callahan. Photograph: Alexa Viscius

We got married to [Smog’s] Our Anniversary. When you write songs, do you think about how listeners might carry them into their own lives, or do the songs stop being yours after they are done? Vanearle
When I wrote [2019’s] Watch Me Get Married, I thought maybe people would have that as their wedding song. But mostly it’s inconceivable what people are gonna do with a song. I don’t think about it too much because there are 100,000 places where it’s gonna live. Have I ever heard about any inappropriate uses of songs? I think having Our Anniversary as a wedding song is a little surprising, but maybe they’re realists.

Smog: Our Anniversary – video
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