Conor Oberst
American singer-songwriter best known for his work in Bright Eyes.
Craig Ferguson: See, I love your work, and I-I'm reading that they're comparing you- saying you're the new Bob Dylan and all that, how does that stuff kinda get you, do you like that? Do you not like it?
Conor Oberst: Uh, I mean... There's certainly worse things to be called.
You mean nothing to no one but that's nobody's fault.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It was a small mistake
Sometimes that is all it takes.
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.
"Honesty" "Accuracy" is just "Popular Opinion."
Everything must belong somewhere.
I know that now, that's why I'm staying here.
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."
If I could act like
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.
Well, if you die... that's a bummer...
Do you guys consider yourselves to live in the country? [audience reaction]... I heard half "yes"es and have "no"s, so I guess you're confused.
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).
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
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?
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.
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!