Caleb Nichols: a new album and a fab Christmas mashup

By Henry Lipput

Let’s Look Back

Let’s Look Back (Kill Rock Stars), the new album from poet, singer, and songwriter Caleb Nichols, continues the backwards looking journey he began with last year’s Ramon (one of my favorite albums of 2022).

Ramon is a queer love story (he used #queerthebeatles on the tweeter to promote the album) about a young gay boy growing up in a small town in the 1990s and finding the music of The Beatles as an escape. There’s also a rocky love story about Mean Mr. Mustard and Captain Custard although the names may have been changed to protect the innocent. The album also contained “(I Fell In Love On) Christmas Day” my new favorite Christmas song.

Following Ramon, Nichols released Chan Says & Other Songs which consisted of both an EP and a book of poems. He described the songs and story being at “the intersection of land/sea, sexuality/gender, and fairy tale/reality” as they tell the story of a young boy born to parents who wanted a girl.

So Let’s Look Back is more like Let’s Look Back Some More. In stark contrast to the warmth of “(I Fell In Love On) Christmas Day,” the new album starts off with “Christmas, California” and it’s clear the trip back home is not one that's looked forward to. The opening guitar riff recalls the music from a Sergio Leone western (or an overture to a shoot-out at the holiday dinner table).

“Demon Twink” and “Absolute Boy” are the album's pop highlights. The latter is a jangle-pop treasure with a sad message at its core: "The time you clipped my wings." “Albatross” rocks out and offers advice to those who have been hurt in love and not ready to move on yet: “Everything you lost/Wear it like an albatross.”

“The Wires,” the penultimate song on Let’s Look Back, is my favorite and the best song on the album. The song starts slow with a strummed electric guitar and an entreaty to a potential lover: “Hold me tonight/Show me.” The song slowly builds, an acoustic guitar dominates the bridge, and it ends with a majestic orchestral conclusion.

So This Is Crimble

It’s hard to deny Nichols’ Beatles credentials. In addition to the very Beatles-influenced Ramon, he also released the single Double Mantasy with covers of McCartney’s “Waterfalls” and Lennon’s “Watching The Wheels”(and he's made them his own).

The main attraction and centerpiece of the So This Is Crimble  EP (Kill Rock Stars) is “Crimble Medley” in which Nichols creates a wonderful mashup of a song from a Beatles Christmas fanclub disc as well as holiday offerings from three solo Beatles along with Ringo's "Photograph" which fits very nicely in the mix (what's Christmas without photographs?). The EP also includes his two most recent Christmas songs, “(I Fell In Love On) Christmas Day” from Ramon and “Christmas, California” from Let’s Look Back.

Here’s the video for “Crimble Medley:”