Today is a great day to share the latest single and music video from singer/songwriter CM Talkington called “Space Invaders.” On this cosmic and personal track, CM Talkington stretches his songwriting in new and interesting ways to remain a captivating force in the indie realm. If you’re enjoying the video, please consider supporting this songwriter here. I was also able to catch up with CM Talkington for a brief interview below.
”Space Invaders” feels both cosmic and deeply personal. How did your experience recovering from colon cancer shape the emotional core of the song and the footage you chose for the video?
”As above, so below.” My cancer dance stripped me down to my essence, revealing this cosmic correspondence. The Flame within & its Source without. I often find myself flickering between the two like a Hummingbird. When I heard the music that Cisco sent me, I knew instantly that it captured that feeling. Bringing “Space Invaders” into existence has been a mystical experience – so many beautiful synchronicities – there’s an unseen force flowing through everything like a river – and we let it flow through us into the song. We just got out of the way & let it happen. I was transformed by cancer, just like the Caterpillar’s metamorphosis into the Butterfly at the end of the video. They cut my whole torso open in both directions, every muscle & nerve, I remember feeling very much like a Butterfly emerging from a cocoon during that initiation.
The newborn Monarch at the end of the video was an authentic event in my life. That Butterfly was born in my bedroom. It took so long to be born that I thought it was dead. Chrysalises often fail, they had for me many times & this cocoon was sagging. It looked rotten & dead. I was crushed. I had put so much time & love into bringing it forth. I wanted this Butterfly to be born so badly, but I accepted it. Surviving cancer schooled me well in surrender & acceptance. I walked into the other room to get something. I was going to place it on my altar next to my Praying Mantises, but when I returned to my bedroom to retrieve the dead chrysalis… A FRESHLY-BORN MONARCH WAS HANGING IN ITS PLACE. WHAT I THOUGHT WAS DEAD WAS ACTUALLY ABOUT TO BE BORN.
It had just emerged & was hanging like the most beautiful work of art I had ever seen. It was a true miracle, such a powerful beautiful teaching of devotion & discipline & patience & faith. I was awe-struck. Everything I had been through over the past six years — really a lifetime — had finally emerged & become what it was born to be. Birth. Death. Re-Birth. Metamorphosis. Transformation. Alchemy. Everything. It was such an artful, transformative moment for me & “Jake”. I named the Butterfly “Jake”, after my close young friend who was killed driving to a film set last year. He was a cinematographer & budding director. We’d been making a documentary together for six years, called “Hollywood Anarchist”. It was going to be Jake’s first documentary feature as director. He didn’t set out to make a doc following my life. It started out as a short promo for my first record, Not Exactly Nashville, but he happened to be in the room when I found out how sick I was & asked if he could keep following me. I jokingly responded that he probably should, in case I died. Neither of us laughed. I was looking at Stage 3 colon cancer, so that was definitely on the table. But just like what happened with the Butterfly, things worked out differently than we expected. I lived. Jake died. I’m currently finishing “Hollywood Anarchist” in his honor. It’s about making life art. JAKE THE BUTTERFLY was born around noon on New Year’s Day 2026. The Year of The Fire Horse. My year. One year after Jake the Young Director was killed.
The video is assembled from six years of documentary footage from your life. What was the process like turning such personal material into a narrative that fits the message of the song?
Very intense. I felt like a wizard working in a workshop. Casting celluloid spells. Making media magic. Traveling through time. Traveling through space. Raising the dead. That’s kind of what you’re doing when you make a documentary film about the six most intense years of your life. I was obsessed & driven, constantly in production, shooting everything with my Pixel phone. Every important heart-breaking, heart-lifting thing that happened in my life. From learning I had colon cancer, to hearing my sister tell me my parents were dead, to finding out I was in remission & getting to play SXSW with Renee Zellweger. From laughter to tears – from life to death – and back again. I feel strongly that transforming the whole ordeal into a work of art truly helped save my life.
In your description of the track, you mention “The Guardians Of The Garden”—Praying Mantis, Bee, Butterfly, Caterpillar, and Hummingbird. What do these figures represent to you, and how did they influence the spirit of the song?
PRAYING MANTIS is one of my closest allies. This journey began when she showed up on my doorstep, about six years ago. She only had one eye. I had the feeling she was thirsty. I brought her a small bowl of water. As soon as I put it down, she started guzzling water like a thirsty dog. I’ve never seen anything like it. She drank straight for minutes. Then I brought her into my house & she lived with me for three days. I shot a lot of footage, which you see in the music video. Eventually she died. I was with her when she did. To honor her, I transformed her into art on my altar & made her the focal point of the “Space Invaders” video.
BEES are also my close allies & integral parts of this story. I’ve watched them closely for years in my garden. They’ve taught me courage, discipline & devotion. I know The Bees & they know me. I do my best to follow their example. They even blessed me with a special crystal crown the day I began recording my first record with Cisco. But, you’ll have to watch “Hollywood Anarchist” for that story.
CATERPILLAR & BUTTERFLY are the metamorphic, metaphorical, symbolic spine of the video, as I mentioned above.
HUMMINGBIRD ”WALEL” (Cherokee translation) was given to me as my Cherokee name after an encounter with a Golden Purple-Throated Hummingbird shimmering in the sunlight, outside an intensive Cherokee language class I was taking in LA. They are messengers & warriors & can navigate dimensions. They are harbingers of Hope, making the “impossible” possible, which is the reason Walel is the last Guardian in the video. The Guardians have been my guides & my teachers. I feel like one of them.
The song calls on people to “stand with The Guardians to defend The Garden.” Is that message meant as something spiritual, environmental, personal—or a mix of all three?
A harmonic mix of all three. They’re all connected. Radiating out from the same Source. Flowing through the same River. The “Sacred Garden” is within us all. We share it. The Source of All Creation. “Space Invaders” is a call to remember what we have forgotten, before we lose it forever.