Quattro (World Drifts In)

The second track on Feast of Wire and its first single. Burns had been given a small four-string Latin American instrument, which Americana UK likened to a ukulele, and playing it set the song going; he wanted it to carry a constant feeling of pace and running. Americana UK and Mojo both tie it to the Tarahumara of the Sierra Madre in Chihuahua, a people famous for running long distances who, Mojo noted, have been drawn into running drugs for the cartels.

It was recorded at Wavelab with Paul Niehaus on pedal steel, Jacob Valenzuela on trumpet, Joseph Valenzuela on trombone, and Craig Schumacher and Nick Luca on synthesizer. PopMatters heard nearly indecipherable lyrics over a bossa nova beat and swirling pedal steel, and Tiny Mix Tapes an almost whispered vocal over a locomotion groove until the horns take over. The European single added Praskovia, Pampa and a ten-minute live Crystal Frontier, and reached 53 in the Netherlands. It was also the band's first music video.

Live and covers

A Barbican performance from November 2002, before the album was out, is on World Drifts In, and a Stockholm one from April 2003 is on More Cowboys in Sweden. setlist.fm logs more than 160 Calexico performances, most of them in 2003 and again on the 2023 and 2024 anniversary tours.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss opened Raise the Roof (2021) with it. Plant had sent it to Krauss among songs he liked, and she said it was the one she went nuts about. Plant called it one of his favorite songs, something he had carried with him for a long time, and the pair played it more than fifty times on tour.

Both uploads in the hypersongs web are the same 2003 studio recording: one from the original Feast of Wire release, the other the band's 2023 official audio from the 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition.