Riding for the Feeling

Track five of Apocalypse, recorded at Sonic Ranch in September 2010; Callahan later guessed it was easy to cut, probably a first take. He told The Rumpus that "riding for the feeling is the apocalypse," and that the start of an idea is one too. Critics heard a song about the touring life: The Quietus thought it described a day of interviews, and Stereogum pictured him in a hotel room playing back demo tapes and weighing whether to run or stay. When The Quietus put such a reading to him, he said he made the songs but did not want to write about his life. PopMatters called it possibly the album's finest moment, and Cokemachineglow one of the gentlest melodies he had written.

Drag City released a video in May 2011, animated by Archie Radkins from artwork by Max Galyon and premiered on VICE. The FADER found it low tech and strangely moving: a cartoon ski jumper hangs over a mountain range that pans and loops.

Live

It opened his 2011 shows and is his second most played song, logged at well over a hundred shows on setlist.fm. It closes Live at Third Man Records (2017), a version from the Bowery Ballroom in 2016 is on the soundtrack LP of the Other Music documentary, and on What a Night! it stretches to more than eleven minutes, its longest release. The upload in the hypersongs web is the official video, Archie Radkins's animation set to the studio recording.