Conor Oberst as prophet
I had a friend in high school who would escape to a universe in her mind where Billy Corgan and Gerard Way were gods. She told my (kind of not really) girlfriend at the time and I this while we were captive in her car on the way home from school, and I remember listening to her explaining this for over an hour while sat in the parking lot. At the time I understood, given that we all needed some escape (this was before I learned that alcohol and drugs help with this), and I was also really into SP and MCR. But I’m not sure if Billy and Gerard are the heroes for me (especially not Billy, but I still love his music). I think Conor Oberst is.
I started listening to bright eyes in my first year of high school. I don’t remember who introduced them to me, but Wide Awake and Digital Ash had just come out so their music was everywhere. I shared an interest in Bright Eyes with multiple people (one who had a dead brother, who did not die in a bathtub) and I fell for their music hard. I remember listening to “If winter ends” on the bus home in the dark and thinking that no music could better represent my sadness at the time (Conor Oberst released this song when he was 18, so he was probably feeling similarly out in Omaha when he wrote it).
My love for bright eyes has been solidified through the past 15+ years with @cozypinguin. We quickly realized we both loved this band, though I still think it’s a little odd that Fevers and Mirrors was the album that got her into them. We saw them together, both for the first time, just 5 months into knowing one another (on 3/11/11, at the same venue where we met). Sometimes I’ve felt embarrassed to share publicly that I still love bright eyes so much in my 30s. In many ways their music hits harder at this age, where choices I make matter much more than they did when I was 15.
One thing that makes me still love bright eyes so much (and many other artists I’ve loved for a decade+, including cloud nothings and Laura Stevenson) is that it’s comforting to see them and their music age alongside me. Conor Oberst has been through some stuff in the past decade (divorce, alcoholism, addiction to Japanese streetwear). All this was put on display when @cozypinguin and I saw him play Baltimore in 2022, a show where he was so drunk he admitted to the audience that he jerked off backstage before the encore (I’m sure I’ll never hear a musician say that again). After that show @cozypinguin and I resolved to see him every time we could, because we didn’t know how many years he had left.
Last night, I went to see bright eyes play one of their 21st birthday shows for Wide Awake/Digital Ash at the Hollywood bowl (I’m writing this on a plane out of LA to the next thing, I happened to be there for outreach). What struck me the most (besides how beautiful the venue is) was how relevant these records still are, especially to me. Wide Awake is about finding love and friendship in a new city while struggling with America being mired in a pointless war. Digital Ash is about how death is everywhere and life is pointless but it’s okay. These are topics that @cozypinguin and I think about every day (her the death thing a little more than me).
I was most taken by how the band used the opportunity posed by these shows to make a political statement — I shouldn’t have been surprised given the two Desaparecidos records (who @cozypinguin has seen but not me, I’m jealous!). This was clear from the lyrics in Wide Awake, but during Digital Ash Conor never acknowledged the audience. Instead the band flashed anti-fascist messages to the audience between songs, who reacted accordingly with the loudest cheers of the night. Before the final encore Let’s Not Shit Ourselves Conor told the audience that if they could do one thing before they next play LA, it’s to stay alive. I hope he does too, and that him seeming to get better isn’t a mirage.
I miss being part of a struggle for a better country. I asked a colleague who was moving faculty jobs from Canada to the US why she would go back, and she told me she wanted to fight and make things better. I didn’t understand at the time, but I do now. America is a fucked up place, and Conor Oberst’s music timelessly represents this. In his music and actions Conor openly fights for peace, immigrant rights, trans and gay rights (btw is he bi??), and democracy. He’s still a problematic man (recall the Phoebe Bridgers situation), but I think it’s okay — role models are people too.
P.S. All my recent posts are about people who I look up to. I typically put all of my close friends on a pedestal (see posts below) and try not to look up to people I don’t actually know, but perhaps a parasocial relationship is unavoidable given that I’ve been listening to bright eyes for 21 years.
