… and from the bottom of the river I looked up for the sun, which had shattered in the water, and the pieces were raining down ...

Friend(s), this post is long over due. ‘Rock Bottom Riser’ by Smog (Bill Callahan) has been my companion for a whole year now. The animation to the song (see below) captivated me when I first saw and heard it, and it won’t let me go. The lyrics are gentle, understated and tender. The music is simple. The different images of the animation, like puddles of oily blood and tears, coalesce and dissolve in the ethereal, transient and diluting blushes of black and pinky-red.

Animation to 'Rock Bottom Riser' by Smog,
from the album 'A River Ain't Too Much To Love'

I love my mother
I love my father
I love my sisters too
I bought this guitar
to pledge my love
to pledge my love
to you

I am a
rock
bottom
riser
and I owe it all
to you

I wonder if Bill Callahan is saying: ‘I love my family and I am dedicating my life and work to them’, or whether he is saying: ‘Yes, I love my family, but I am directing my love to someone else’ – a friend, companion, lover, the listener to the song etc … Either way I sense that Bill is trying to express an “essential” kind of love, as if he couldn’t live without feeling and naming this love.

I find this song to be deeply melancholic. And this is despite the sense of deep love that is pledged through the medium of song, and the redemptive qualities of attributing the experience of being a ‘rock bottom riser’ to the practical expression of devotion by loved-ones. I find it so sad because, despite all of this, it just may not, and may never, be:

good enough

I bought this guitar
to pledge my love,
to pledge my love
to you