Bullets & Rocks

Iron & Wine's Samuel Beam sings on this song despite Calexico frontman Joey Burns' hesitation in asking him to take part. He recalled to Spin: "The way that I was approaching the vocals, it kind of reminded me of Sam and some of the work we've done together. So I thought I'll just text him and see. You'd think it would be easy enough to do, but there's a lot of contemplating that goes by where you go, 'I don't want to bother those people. They're super-busy. He has more kids than I do.'" Samuel Beam was one of several guests on the Edge of the Sun album. It was regular touring member Sergio Mendoza who encouraged Burns to make the calls. Said the frontman: "He said, 'Yeah you should pick up the phone. Call Neko [Case]. Call Sam.' And then one of his friends had suggested getting in touch with Ben Bridwell from Band of Horses, whom I've never met. Sergio was responsible for encouraging me to make these calls, which I really appreciate."