Singled Out: Katie Callahan's Low Tide

Keavin Wiggins | 10-25-2021

Katie Callahan just released her new album, "The Water Comes Back", and to celebrate we asked her to tell us about one of the tracks, and she selected the song "Low Tide". Here is the story:

The title of my new record, "The Water Comes Back" comes from the chorus of the final track called "Low Tide." It’s about seeing the limitations of capacity clearly, not as a hard barrier, but as part of the ebb and flow of growth, change, and the seasons. The water recedes, the tide goes out, everything on the ocean floor is exposed -- what is it like when the same exposure happens to everything in one’s life? In this case and for me, it was naming the limitations of my mental health, my circumstances, and parenthood as boundaries around chasing a dream while being a healthy mother, artist, and person and not reasons to give up the dream altogether.

I like to think that every “you” in this album can be replaced with “I,” that even if it’s a song about a lover or a friend, it’s still self-reflective. The line, “I see you there across the way/ Could I have missed this side of you,” is as much about another person as it is taking a bird’s eye view of one’s self. Could I have missed these things about myself, and how do I reconcile with them knowing they’re there?

The great gift of this process was that I got to put the project together with my musical heroes, members of the band Jars of Clay, who I’ve loved since I was 8 years old listening to my brother’s walkman. Matt Odmark produced, recorded, and mixed the album and was a huge support and mentor. He really gave me permission to lean into the spirit of every song, especially this one, which is a distilled version of everything "The Water Comes Back" is trying to say.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album here