Jose Gonzalez’s two-part story about his unlikely friendship with a worm has finally reached its conclusion. Fans who watched Calexico’s video for “Falling From The Sky,” which was the first part of the worm story, can now have their questions answered as to the end of the story.
Gonzalez’s easy-going, self-confessional songwriting has put him into another tier that separates him from others in his musical class. His newest album, Vestiges & Claws, contains several fantastic tunes that feature mostly just Gonzalez and his guitar. Gonzalez has thus far released three singles off of the new album, the most recent one before “Open Book” being the Calexico track “Falling From The Sky.” The latter of those two songs is the first part of a two-part story involving Gonzalez and a bizarre, worm-like creature that’s attached to him. The newest track off of the Vestiges & Claws record finalizes the story in a pretty definitive manner. The worm-thingy seems to need Gonzalez more than Gonzalez needs it, as evidenced by Gonzalez’s reactions to the worm’s constant thrashing about. Unable to take the worm’s presence anymore, Gonzalez takes matters into his own hands and cuts the worm’s attachment by wedging it in the door.
As weird as the video is, the funniest part occurs at the end of the video when Gonzalez leaves the case in which he’s sealed off the worm in some sort of swanky hotel dining room. The box thrashes around and the dinner guests begin to suspect that something strange is happening, at which point the video ends. The story of the worm is a strange presentation of a theme that jumps around in Gonzalez’s Vetsiges & Claws: overcoming the need to be attached to something (or even someone). If you’ve seen the video for “Falling From The Sky,” there can be little doubt that you’ve been waiting for the conclusion to the story, so be sure to catch the video here.