Press Kit · Estuary Sessions · 2026
When I Fell Asleep
Hunter Cahill
Told from the perspective of a four-year-old in a 1980s fundamentalist evangelical household, When I Fell Asleep opens awake, in bed, and grappling with adult concepts of hell and death. It shows how fear, love, and violence saturate daily life, and how the same hand that strikes you is the one who carries you to bed. Much of Hunter’s catalog has been about the coping. This is the song about its source. “If god is love / Why am I afraid?” Third single from the Estuary Sessions, recorded with engineer Matt Gerhard at Estuary Recording in Austin, with Sadie Wolfe on cello. Released October 9, 2026.
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Hunter Cahill, self-portrait, six years old
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Press
There’s a certain intimacy that gets shared when you can find common ground like this.
Austin Town Hall · Oct 2021
Sometimes overwhelming, often heartbreaking, always compelling.
Indie Obsessive · Feb 2022
Fans of Manchester Orchestra and REM, rejoice. This is stunning stuff.
Soundsphere Magazine · Aug 2021
Everyone will find themselves in the song.
We Love That Sound · Oct 2021
Off-the-cuff, heart-on-your-sleeve.
Unxigned · 2021
Press Photos
Lyrics
Awake, in bed, four years old
Begging for my soul
Daddy said I’d burn in hell
I don’t do what I’m told
Jesus won’t you save me
I don’t know what I did
Mama said they’re killing babies
Are they killing little kids?
Don’t spare the rod
You’ll spoil me
This kind of love
Smells like gasoline
Your face turns to flames
When you’re loving me
You love me so much
That I can’t breathe
In the car, no conversation
Only voices, on the station
Mock execution
Sunday school
Start to cry
Practicing the ending
When we all might die
If god is love
Why am I afraid?
If god is with us
Why don’t I feel safe?
Don’t spare the rod
You’ll spoil me
This kind of love
Smells like gasoline
Your face turns to flames
When you’re loving me
You love me so much
That I can’t breathe
Still a memory I keep
You carried me
When I fell asleep
About
Hunter Cahill is an Austin, Texas singer-songwriter. His debut collection Some Things You Don’t Know About Me arrived between 2021 and 2022: six self-recorded singles, confessional music that kept its distance. The press noticed. Austin Town Hall drew comparisons to David Bazan; Soundsphere called it “stunning.” He released all of it wearing a wolf mask.
The Estuary Sessions, recorded with engineer Matt Gerhard, go further back than the coping does: to a religious upbringing where love and fear were the same, and to what that does to a person.
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