Songfacts®:

• "Coyotes" is the lead track of Bill Callahan's 2022 album Ytilaer. The song was inspired by Callahan's experience living in a house in hills where the howls of the wild canines woke him up every morning. His son was a toddler at the time and their dog slept outside while the coyotes drew closer each day.
  
  "Like a righteous floating tide the coyotes would drift into our world," he said. "Predator and prey, blurred. Past and present, blurred. The young, the aged are to be snatched and devoured. Past lives edge in closer to try to speak to us. Current lives eye the past ones like sleeping dogs. And love spans all, that is why the feeling is so deep - deeper than one lifetime."
• The song drifts off into a meditation on reincarnation.
  
  Holding hands through many lives
  In clusters
  Or packs
  Or coyote bands
  
  Uncut magazine asked Callahan if believes in reincarnation. "I do," he replied. "I was always open to that anyway and also having kids, they're pretty much, 'who is this person?' It just makes sense to me."
• Callahan recorded Ytilaer at Arlyn Studios in Austin, Texas. Mark Nevers handled the production. He has also produced albums for artists such as Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Lambchop and Calexico.
• So why Ytilaer? "It's just pronounced reality," Callahan explained. "I was doodling maybe four or five years ago, and I wrote the word reality in mirror type. It popped back into my head when I was thinking of titles. It seemed appropriate for everything the world has been through. Things aren't what they seem."
• Coyotes are a species of canid native to North and Central America. They are part of the same family as wolves and dogs, but are smaller in size. Coyotes are known for their distinctive howl, which is often used to communicate with others in their pack. They are also known for their intelligence and resourcefulness, and are capable of adapting to changing environments and human activities.
  
  Coyotes have inspired several other songs, including Modest Mouse's "Coyotes" and Sleater-Kinney's "Light Rail Coyote." A coyote that rode Portland's MAX light rail train in 2002 inspired both the "Coyotes" video and the "Light Rail Coyote" lyrics. The creature hopped on the train at the Rose Quarter station and rode it to the end of the line at the airport. Animal control eventually captured the coyote and released it back into the wild.