Conor Oberst
American singer-songwriter best known for his work in Bright Eyes.
I’ve seen a child, he's caught in the sad trap of gravity.
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.
The world's become a little too mean.
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.
But greed is a bottomless pit
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!
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.
And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment.
We're still the pawns in their game.
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"
So hurry up and run to the one that you love.
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.
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".
If you wanna see the future,
Go stare into a cloud.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
You mean nothing to no one but that's nobody's fault.
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.
When it rains it pours, they say. My guess is that its those damned English terrorists with their weather machine, trying to ruin our fun.
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.
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.
As they take eye for an eye until no one can see,
we must stumble blindly forward, repeating history.