Author: Miles Rausch

From I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning (2005)

While 2005 saw the release of a “techno” Bright Eyes album, it also saw the opposite. Land Locked Blues, and the other songs on this album, were of a stripped-down, folky (bleeding slightly into country and western), and generally warm manner. This song mosies, as one would say, with clever turns of phrase and brilliant song-writing.

Notable lyric: If you walk away, I’ll walk away / First tell me which road you will take / I don’t want to risk our paths crossing someday / So you walk that way, I’ll walk this way

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Digital Ash In a Digital Urn (2005)

2005 was a big year for Bright Eyes. Conor had recently moved to New York and was working on two simultaneous albums. One album produced this song, a percussive exploration of all of life and all of time. Quite a heady topic for an indie (pop?) song, but one that makes for a jaunty sing-song when you feel the need.

Notable lyric: Singing “I told you son, / The day will come, / You would die, you die, you die, you die…”

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From Oh Holy Fools (2001)

This song comes from a split EP with the band Son, Ambulance. Unfortunately, I don’t own this album. I say “unfortunately” because it has some of my favorite Bright Eyes tracks on it, especially this one. With a tangible ache, lyrics hinting at suicide attempts and life reconstructions, this song takes you to a dark brink, walks you back, and gives you a hug.

Notable lyric: So I’d like to make some changes / Before you arrive / So when your new eyes meet mine / They won’t see no lies / Just love.

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From Letting Off The Happiness (1998)

An early experiment with synthesizers, this song stands out on this sophomore effort by Conor. It shows that he certainly had learned a lot of lessons from the previous album. However, that doesn’t mean he gave up any of his old style. This has just as much of the scrape-sound as his acoustic endeavors.

Notable lyric: and there is nothing more i want / than just one night / that’s free of doubt and sadness

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From Fevers and Mirrors (2000)

It’s hard to believe that someone who spends so much time being raw and harsh can write something so beautiful. This song is an unexpected sunrise vista. The story told in the lyrics is supported (and complemented) by a wonderful arrangement of the cornucopia of instruments which has become the style of Bright Eyes.

Notable lyric: but now I’m confused / is this death really you?

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From Every Day and Every Night EP (1999)

This song has some vivid imagery. It’s a love song that spends most of the time wallowing in anger and depression. The narrator constantly reiterates his hatred of lovers, that class of people ignorant to the cold emptiness of the real world, remarking that lovers should be drowned and burned. Then, in the last verse, he suddenly changes course, ending the song in remarkable optimism.

Notable lyric: I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers / And laid entwined together on a bed of clovers / Left there to sleep / Left there to dream of their happiness

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From Cassadaga (2007)

Notable lyric: Well, I went back to my rented Cadillac and company jet / Like a newly orphaned refugee, retracing my steps / All the way to Cassadaga to commune with the dead / They said, “You’d better look alive”

A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997 (1997)

In 1995, I was 12 years old. Conor Oberst, lead singer and mastermind behind Bright Eyes, was three years older. And, yet, he was writing songs like this one. This song, from the first Bright Eyes album, is tortured and raw. In typical Conor fashion, his voice is a stratchy record. Yet, he never screams for no reason; there is always melody, harmony, or message in his voice.

Stand out lyric: Fill the bathtub with ice and hope this fever will break / Like a heart / Easily

From Lifted Or the Story Is In the Soil, Keep Your Ear to The Ground (2002)

From the first three words, repeated thrice, you have little idea of what this song has in mind for you. It waltzes around you, like a sad, forgotten photograph. It makes me feel a little bit like that last shot in The Shining, when we find Jack Torrence frozen forever in the time period that he has always been from, caretaker forevermore.

I love the strings in this, and the 3/4 time signature.

Notable lyric: We used to think that sound was something pure…

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