Katie Callahan weaves a compelling, thought-provoking narrative on “EXTRAORDINARY”

Baltimore-based indie singer-songwriter Katie Callahan has just released her breathtaking new album, “EXTRAORDINARY,” and she sat down with @skopemag to talk about this magical collection of songs.

@skopemag: Tell us about your new album, “EXTRAORDINARY.”

Katie: “EXTRAORDINARY” is, reductively, my love letter to the aging woman. It’s a short album built like a body: seven tracks for seven chakras. Each song is a reflection on the emotional focus of a physical place in the body as described by chakra points: root, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye, and crown. The goal is to bring together parts of living that were never meant to be taken apart but have been–specifically in the case of folks who identify as women–mind, spirit, body.

@skopemag: What is your favorite song on the album?

Katie: I’ll say the song that I really cherish, was most difficult to write, and still feels like a zap to the heart when I listen to it is the last track, “There You Are.” It gives the Body voice to speak to the Self and talk about their relationship over a lifetime. The verses arc from being a young girl relishing her body to growing up and being told to hide it, to hate it, to when she began to punish herself and harm her body, to reconciliation and relearning how to trust through pregnancy and birth. I’m confident I’m not the only one who needs to hear their Body tell them, “I forgive you.”

@skopemag: What do you hope the message of this album is?

Katie: The themes of grief, platonic love and relationship, embodiment, desire, and specifically desire as experienced by women, are sort of sprinkled everywhere. I think the primary reason I write songs is the hope that saying some of these things out loud makes people feel less alone. I’m always convinced I’m the only one struggling in a particular way, but when I come across something like a song or a poem or a book or an image and it tells me my own story, it can really feel like a homecoming.

https://www.instagram.com/katie_callahan_music/