Conor Oberst

Conor Oberst (born February 15, 1980) is an American singer-songwriter best known for his work in Bright Eyes. He has also played in several other bands, including Desaparecidos, Commander Venus and Park Ave.

Quotes

 * I never fuck with Facebook. I absolutely despise social networking. I think it's truly going to result in the destruction of mankind. Sometimes I just wish I didn't live in this time. Before, there was so much more freedom and privacy, and you could truly escape places.
 * As quoted in "Conor Oberst's Mystical Awakening" by  Chris Norris  in Rolling Stone (25 June 2009), p. 66-84

A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997 (1998)

 * The world's become a little too mean.
 * Saturday as Usual


 * And me I'm in my bedroom drawing in my notebook Because my hand thinks I'm an artist But my heart knows I'm a poet It's just words they mean so little to me.
 * Saturday as Usual


 * My Brother went to college To become a doctor And if he studies hard enough He'll end up just like papa, who hates his life.
 * Saturday as Usual


 * And me I'm in the bathroom crying out my eyelids because it's hard to be a man when you're scared, just like a little kid.
 * Saturday as Usual


 * If I die tonight, then I guess I die tonight Let me go on.
 * Falling Out Of Love At This Volume


 * I started to sink like the moon tends to do if you stare at it too long Then you blink and it's gone
 * ''The Awful Sweetness Of Escaping Sweat

I guess time has a way of making everything alright it's just there is not enough of it and so we drink and we sing and we celebrate this lie and hope that it will last morning is here night has passed A celebration upon completion

but i guess fear has a way of making sleep unbearable and the days seem cold and long but we'll cry and we dance and we stumble into love in awkward perfect grace the moon is gone and the sun has took its place A celebration upon completion

Letting Off the Happiness (1998)

 * I swear that I'm dying slowly but it's happening, and if the perfect spring is waiting somewhere... just take me there.
 * If Winter Ends


 * In a coma, you don't dream, you just hope that someone sits with you.
 * Padraic My Prince


 * I had a brother once, he drowned in a bathtub, before he'd ever learned how to talk. And I don't know what his name was but my mother does, I heard her say it once, she said, "Padraic, my prince, I have all but died from the sheer weight of my shame: you cried but no-one came."
 * Padraic My Prince


 * I find that life is easier when it is just a blur With no details to confuse who or what or where I was So when the ending comes the full regret will be obscure
 * The Difference In The Shades

Insound Tour Support No.12 (2000)

 * Well morning came, and it dressed the sky in a lovely yellow gown. Shopping malls are opening in that narrow hallway of downtown, filled with people who are shopping for their lovers and their friends, singing "I won't ever be lonely again"
 * I Won't Ever be Happy Again


 * There's a cat in the window, of the house of my lover. Well she sleeps there alone now, or perhaps with another. Oh I try no to think about that, I try not to think at all!


 * My parents ask if I'm alright; I say "I've just been staying up too late. I need to sleep" I need to do something! To get this awful weight up off my chest, keep her pretty ghost from chasing me!


 * So you say there are spaces, opening wide? Oh believe me, there's day longer than nights. And you could be happy, if only you'd try. But you don't try. No you don't try.


 * And you speak of a fever, that burns you inside, as you explain to your mother, how you've wanted to die. So she kisses your fingers, and says "My darling, but why? When there is so much more. There is so much more."


 * You could be happy, the minute you try. Why won't you try? Oh won't you try?
 * The Joy in Forgetting - The Joy in Acceptance

Fevers and Mirrors (2000)

 * And the sad act like lepers They stick to the shadows They long to ring bells of warning To tell of their coming So that the pure can shut their doors.
 * Arienette


 * I drug your ghost across the country, and we plotted out my death. Every city and memory we whispered "Here is where you rest." Well I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees And I settled for a telephone, sang into your machine: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine."
 * The Calendar Hung Itself


 * And I sing and sing of awful things The pleasure that my sadness brings.
 * Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh


 * For a sunrise or a sunset, you're manic or you’re depressed. Will you ever feel ok?
 * Sunrise, Sunset


 * I think it is more like a ghost that has been following us both. Something vague that we're not seeing, something more like a feeling.
 * Something Vague

Now I know a disease that these Doctors can’t treat. You contract on the day you accept all you see is a mirror and a mirror is all it can be. A reflection of something we’re missing.

And these clocks keep unwinding and completely ignore everything that we hate or adore. Once the page of a calendar is turned it’s no more. So tell me then, what was it for? Oh tell me, what was it for?
 * A Scale, A Mirror And Those Indifferent Clocks

Soon all the joy that pours from everything makes fountains of your eyes because you finally understand the movement of a hand waving good-bye.
 * ''The Movement Of A Hand**

You combed your hair inside that mirror The one you painted blue and glued with jewelry tears Something about those bright colors Would always make you feel better. <

You said you hate my suffering, and you understood, And you’d take care of me. You'd always be there for me Well, where are you now?

Haligh, Haligh, a lie, Haligh, The plans were never finalized, But left to hang like yarn and twine, Dangling before my eyes. Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh

Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset. Swiftly go the days. Sunrise, sunset. You wake up, then you undress. It always is the same. a sunrise and the sun sets.

Sunrise, the sun sets. You are hopeful and then you regret. The circle never breaks.

For a sunrise or sunset. You’re either coming or you just left but you’re always on the way.

It’s a sunrise and a sunset. From a cradle to a casket. There’s no way to escape. Sunrise, Sunset

Did you expect it all to stop At the wave of your hand? Like the sun’s just gonna drop, If it’s night you demand.

I think you lost what you loved In that mess of details. They seemed so important at the time Now you can’t even recall Any names, faces, or lines; It’s more the feeling of it all. An attempt to tip the scales

But all I have for the moment is a song to pass the time. Yeah, a melody to keep me from worrying. Oh, some simple progression to keep my fingers busy. And words that are sure to come back to me and they'll be laughing. And they'll be laughing. My mediocrity. My mediocrity.

A Song To Pass The Time

Don't Be Frightened of Turning the Page (2001)

 * There was this book I read and loved, The story of a ship Who sailed around the world and found That nothing else exists Beyond its own two sails And wooden shell And what is held within. All else is sure to pass. We clutch and grasp And debate what's truly permanent.
 * Oh, You Are the Roots That Sleep Beneath My Feet and Hold the Earth in Place


 * I sing and drink and sleep on floors And try hard not to be annoyed By all these people worrying about me. So when I'm suffering through some awful drive, You occasionally cross my mind. It's my hidden hope that you are still among them. Well, are you?
 * Oh, You Are the Roots That Sleep Beneath My Feet and Hold the Earth in Place

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)
but you will never shake the light. It will greet you every morning and make you more aware with its absence at night there is no more time. So you can struggle in the water and be too stubborn to die, or you could just let go and be lifted to the sky.
 * If you wanna see the future, Go stare into a cloud.
 * Well is it your fear of being buried that makes you so afraid to speak?
 * So you can try and live in darkness
 * The hook is in deep boys,


 * The Big Picture


 * If the world could remain within a frame Like a painting on a wall, Then I think we would see the beauty, then We would stand staring in awe At our still lives posed Like a bowl of oranges, Like a story told By the fault lines and the soil.
 * Bowl of Oranges

He falls from the lowest branch of the apple tree and lands in the grass and weeps for his dignity. Next time he will not aim so high. Yeah, next time, neither will I. And I would throw my whole billfold if I thought it would help. They give us fact or fiction? I guess an even split. We're still the pawns in their game. we must stumble blindly forward, repeating history.
 * Ambition, I’ve found, can lead only to failure. I do not read the reviews. No, I am not singing for you.
 * The animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness.
 * I’ve seen a child, he's caught in the sad trap of gravity.
 * Well, I stood dropping a coin into the pit of a well.
 * "Honesty" "Accuracy" is just "Popular Opinion."
 * Well, ABC, NBC, CBS: Bullshit.
 * And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment.
 * As they take eye for an eye until no one can see,


 * Let's Not Shit Ourselves


 * Love's an excuse to get hurt and to hurt. Do you like to hurt? I do, I do then hurt me.
 * Lover I Don't Have to Love


 * So you think I need some discipline, well, I had my share. I have been sent to my room. I've been sat in a chair. I held my tongue. I didn't plug my ears. No, I got a good talking to. And now I don't know why, but I still try to smile when they talk at me like I'm just a child. Well, I'm not a child. No, I am much younger than that. And now I have read some books and have grown quite brave. If only I could just speak up I think I would say that there is no truth. There is only you and what you make the truth.
 * Don't Know When But A Day is Gonna Come


 * He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper. I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover.
 * It is clear to see that it is not them but me, who had lost my self-identity. As I hide behind these books I read, while scribbling my poetry, like art could save a wretch like me, with some ideal ideology that no one can hope to achieve. And I am never real; it is just a sketch of me. And everything I have made is trite and cheap and a waste of paint, of tape, of time
 * Waste of Paint


 * My head's a carousel of pictures and The spinning never stops.
 * Nothing Gets Crossed Out


 * For a song I was bought Now I lie when I talk With a careful eye on the cue card. Onto a stage I was pushed, With my sorrow well rehearsed. So give me all your pity and your money, now (all of it).
 * False Advertising


 * But where was it when I first heard that sweet sound of humility? It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody! How grateful I was, then, to be part of the mystery, To love, and to be loved! Let’s just hope that is enough.
 * Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and to Be Loved)


 * But you should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living Cause it's the ones with the sorest throats Laura, who have done the most singing.
 * Laura Laurent

no private screening This method acting, well, I call that living
 * It's not a movie,
 * Method Acting

This was my real life, And not some cage where I've been placed, Well then, I could tell you The truth like I used to And not be afraid of sounding fake.
 * If I could act like


 * False Advertising

I keep making this to-do list but nothing gets crossed out Working on the record seems pointless now When the world ends who's gonna hear it?
 * And it's too hard to focus through all this doubt

And it's all pre-determined, can't change your destiny Guess I'll just keep moving, someday maybe I'll get to where I'm going
 * Everything that happens is supposed to be
 * Nothing Gets Crossed Out

And blind him with your kindness. And he'll make war, oh war, On who you were before. And he'll claim all that has spoiled in your heart.
 * So hurry up and run to the one that you love.

is as good as gospel in this town. You can save face but you won't ever save your soul. And that's a fact.
 * Because the truth is that gossip
 * Make War

Sometimes that is all it takes.
 * It was a small mistake

when I was lifted up by someone's hand And delivered from the corner my enemies had got me in But in all of my salvation I still felt imprisoned inside that holding cell that is myself
 * But, I was as helpless as a chess piece

when I'll hear the key as it turns in the lock And the guard will say to me, "Oh my patient prisoner you waited for this day and finally, you are free! You are free! You are free!"
 * So I wait for the day
 * From A Balance Beam

There Is No Beginning to the Story (2003)

 * We're all too busy working, entertaining ourselves With forty hours, television and prescription pills Well, I take two a day to help my brain behave It never does, but who's to say? At least my doctor gets paid.
 * Loose Leaves


 * 'Cause a costume can be comfortable It can make you feel more beautiful It can even make you look like someone else But it's still you, so there's nothing you can do Like a bad habit, the one you couldn't kick, there it always is And it's nothing that no doctor's gonna fix.
 * We Are Free Men

I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (2005)

 * I know you have a heavy heart, I can feel it when we kiss So many men stronger than me Have thrown their backs out trying to lift it But me I'm not a gamble You can count on me to split The love I sell you in the evening by the morning won't exist.
 * Lua


 * I'd rather be working for a paycheck, than waiting to win the lottery. Besides, maybe this time it's different, I mean, I really think you like me.
 * First Day of my Life

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 for my landlocked blues And our freedom's a joke we're just taking a piss And the whole world must watch the sad comic display If you're still free start runnin' away 'cause we're comin' for ya! from the shackles of language and measurable time
 * If you walk away I'll walk away
 * I found a liquid cure
 * And there's kids playing guns in the streets And one's pointing his tree branch at me So I put my hands up I say "Enough is enough, If you walk away I walk away." And he shot me dead.
 * But greed is a bottomless pit
 * You'll be free child once you have died
 * Landlocked Blues

Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in a drawer? Well, I don't think that I ever loved you more And all their tearful words will turn back into steam
 * And I never thought this life was possible,You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for.
 * In polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
 * Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep
 * The sound of loneliness makes me happier
 * Poison Oak

Flowers sleepin' in their beds The city cemetary's hummin' I'm wide awake, its mornin'
 * Well, I could have been a famous singer If I had someone else's voice But failure's always sounded better Let's fuck it up, boys, make some noise!
 * The sun came up with no conclusions


 * Road To Joy


 * i keep drinking the ink from my pen and i'm balancing history books up on my head but it all boils down to one quotable phrase if you love something give it away
 * landlocked blues


 * a good woman will pick you apart a box full of suggestions for your possible heart and you may be offended. and you may be afraid but don't walk away, don't walk away
 * landlocked blues


 * we made love on the living room floor with the noise in the background of a televised war and in that defeaning pleasure i thought i heard someone say if we walk away they'll walk away
 * landlocked blues

Love was always cruel And don't act strange, don't be a stranger It happened to me, now it's happening to you But if you'd take that train underwater Then we could talk it through
 * So don't be fooled, so don't get lied to

I was a camera until I went blind
 * Yeah, I was a postcard, I was a record


 * train under water

is to pretend that I've done nothing wrong and to dream about a train that's gonna take me back where I belong
 * I guess the best that I can do now

All my thoughts they come in pairs Oh I will, I won't, I doubt, I don't, I'm not surprised but I never feel quite prepared
 * So I go back and forth forever

I guess you call that paintin' in a cave And there's a word I can't remember and a feeling I cannot escape
 * Now I'm hunched over a typewriter

And I awoke to my alarm clock it was a pop song it was playin' loud
 * I dreamt this ship was sinkin' there was people screaming all around

or I will cower like a dog I will kick and scream or kneel and plead I'll fight like hell to hide that I've given up
 * So I will find my fears and face them


 * Another Travelin' Song

Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (2005)
That wakes you up and makes you clean I know I'm just the weather against your window As you sleep through a winter's dream
 * I want to be the surgeon who cuts you open Who fixes all of life's mistakes I want to be the house that you were raised in The only place where you feel safe.
 * I wanna be a shower in the morning
 * Ship in a Bottle


 * I hear if you make friends with Jesus Christ, you will get right up from that chalk outline. And then you'll get dolled up, and you'll dress in white all to take your place in his chorus line. And then in you'll come with those marching drums in a saintly compromise. No more whiskey slurs, no more blonde-haired girls for your whole eternal life. And you'll do the dance that was choreographed at the very dawn of time. Singing "I told you son, the day would come you would die, you'd die you'd die you'd die you'd die".
 * Arc Of Time


 * Sometimes I worry that I've lost the plot My twitching muscles tease my flippant thoughts I never really dreamed of heaven much Until we put him in the ground.
 * There is nothing as lucky, as easy, or free
 * Easy/Lucky/Free


 * You took off your clothes and left on the light, You stood there so brave, you used to be shy, Each feature improved, each movement refined, And eyes like a showroom.
 * Take it Easy (Love Nothing)

so don't look so worried
 * There is no Hell when you die
 * Light Pollution

Noise Floor (Rarities: 1998-2005) (2006)
cause thats as close as it will ever come and believe you're were you're are keep acting out the part but at the end of the day the trees all get wheeled away and you'll be standing alone in a blank, blank space
 * so immagine what you want and hold onto that thought

and stay in character but at the end of the play the audience walks away and ill be shivering cold on a well lit stage
 * so believe you're who you are


 * The trees get wheeled away

They’re all about the same They’re waiting for something Hoping to be saved
 * The drunk kids, the catholics
 * Drunk Kid Catholic

Some decisions you don't make I guess it's just like breathing or not wanting to There are some things you can't fake
 * And I'm sorry about the phone call and needing you

I know that it is late, But thank you for talking, because I needed to. Some things just can't wait.
 * I'm sorry about the phone call; and waking you.


 * Happy Birthday To Me (Feb 15)

So that these winds of circumstance won't keep blowing me around. From when I land to when I leave there is enough time to sleep and sing. I keep running around, when all I want is to lay motionless.
 * So I want to get myself attached to something bolted down,


 * Motion Sickness

Cassadaga (2007)

 * It's exploding bags, aerosol cans Southbound buses, Peter Pan They left it up to us again I thought you knew the drill It's kill or be killed.
 * Clairaudients(Kill or Be Killed)

The Torah's deaf. The Qur'an is mute. If you burned them all together you’d get close to the truth.
 * The squatters made a mural of a Mexican girl With fifteen cans of spray paint and a chemical swirl She's standing in the ashes at the end of the world Four winds blowing through her hair.
 * The Bible's blind.
 * Four Winds


 * On a detox loft through a Glendale Park over sidewalk chalk Someone wrote in red, "start over."
 * Cleanse Song


 * Oh, I've made love, yeah, I've been fucked, so what? I'm a cartoon, you're a full moon, let's stay up.
 * Hot Knives


 * You mean nothing to no one but that's nobody's fault.
 * Soul Singer in a Session Band


 * Little soldier, little insect You know war it has no heart It will kill you in the sunshine Or happily in the the dark Where kindness is a card game Or a bent up cigarette In the trenches, in the hard rain With a bullet and a bet.
 * No One Would Riot for Less


 * Everything must belong somewhere. I know that now, that's why I'm staying here.
 * I Must Belong Somewhere

My feet just led the way
 * I never thought of running
 * If The Brakeman turns my way

But my dreams gave me away
 * I tried to pass for nothing
 * If The Brakeman turns my way


 * Don't be so amazing or I'll miss you too much.
 * Lime Tree

Conor Oberst (2008)

 * You’ve been a father to me. Your 1960’s speak. Gives me comatose joy like re-run TV. While the mountainside was shining. Wild colors of my destiny
 * Cape Cañaveral


 * And in the morning when the sun rise. Look in the water, see the blue sky. As if heaven has been laid there at our feet.
 * Sausalito


 * I wanna be your happiness. I wanna be your common sense pain.
 * Get-Well-Cards


 * If I loved you, well that's my fault
 * Lenders In The Temple