You know you’re in trouble when the most uplifting song on an LP is about a fatal airline crash. And yet in the case of the 2005 LP I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, Bright Eyes’ front man Conor Oberst somehow makes it work. This album may not be a mood elevator, but it’s lovely from spiritually charged beginning to political end, thanks in part to Oberst’s excellent lyrics and thanks in part to the melodies, doleful as they often are.
Folk influenced, but with touches of musical discord, “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” left me cold at first, with the exception of the airplane crash classic, “At the Bottom of Everything.” But it slowly grew on me, like fuzzy green mold on the animated corpse of Rod Stewart. Oberst may truck in depression, and his idea of a happy song may involve mass death, but he’s not taking life lying down. On “Ode to Joy” (which borrows, musically, from Beethoven), for instance, he defiantly faces down the darkness at noon, raging against the futility of war to the accompaniment of some cool guitar feedback before tossing in the great lines, “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!” If all he’d written in his life were those last two lines, I would still love the man.
“We Are Nowhere and It’s Now” boasts a lovely melody and the vocals of Emmylou Harris, dueting with Oberst. Oberst is falling apart, what with the waitress at his favorite bar looking concerned and the drugs he’s taking giving him a “head full of pesticide.” The trumpet is great, the vocals are transcendental, and somebody else’s suffering has never sounded so good. “Lua” is another slow and lovely number, with Oberst singing in a whisper about wandering the streets of New York City thinking about a woman with a heart so heavy it has thrown out the backs of many men. Oberst is not one of them; he can, he sings, be counted on to split. Sharing a flask on the train, Oberst sings, “We might die from medication/But we sure killed all the pain.”
Oberst opens “Train Under Water” with the lovely line, “You were born inside a raindrop,” then follows it with the bummerific, “And I watched you falling to your death.” Thanks for the lift, Conor. But all is not lost, as what starts as a slow folk tune kicks into gear, a guitar solos, and you could almost dance, if it weren’t for Oberst’s dour lyrics, which are redeemed only by the lines, “While the world waits for an explosion/That moment in time when we are set free/Well don’t stay mad/Just let some time pass/And in the morning you’ll wake feeling new.” The acoustic guitar-powered “First Day of My Life” boasts a simple melody, has a Dylanesque feel, and is actually upbeat; it’s a love song untouched by Oberst’s usual references to drugs, alcohol, sorrow, or apocalyptic doom.
I guess I lied when I said the airplane crash tune “At the Bottom of Everything” was the most kickin’ tune on the LP, because the rockabilly-style “Another Travelin’ Song” actually motorvates, chug-a-lugging down the road thanks to some great guitar and the vocals of Harris. This may well be the best song ever written about writer’s block, with Oberst howling ambiguously at the song’s close, “So I will find my fears and face them/I will cower like a dog/I will kick and scream/I will kneel and plead/I’ll fight like hell, to hide that I’m givin’ up.” As for “Poison Oak” it’s hauntingly beautiful, what with its beguiling melody and lyrics about a childhood friend lost; his friend locks Polaroids of himself in women’s clothing in a drawer and steals a car and goes on the run, writing bad checks to support his heroin addiction, and it’s all so sad but lovely thanks in part to Mike Mogis’ swelling and waning pedal steel and the song’s sudden upsurge, which I can’t hear without wanting to weep. This is songwriting at its most powerful, and Maria Taylor’s vocals add to the song’s beatific feel, as does Nick White’s organ.
“Old Soul Song (For the New World Order)” is a protest song about a protest in which the protesters go wild, routing the police, and it has a fuller sound than many of the LP’s tunes, thanks in parts to Taylor’s vocals, Mogis’ pedal steel, and lots of great drumming by Jason Boesel. It ends with Oberst repeating, “And they go wild” to the accompaniment of Walcott’s trumpet, and it’s a cathartic moment indeed. “Land Locked Blues” is an anti-war song; you walk away and I’ll walk away sings Oberst, before being joined by Emmylou Harris in a lovely duet. “Kids playing guns in the street,” sings Oberst, “And one’s pointing his tree branch at me/So I put up my hands up I say/’Enough is enough, if you walk away I walk away’/(And he shot me dead).” He then proceeds to denounce America’s concept of freedom, crying out, “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.” After which a trumpet blasts in ironic triumph, and Oberst gets tangled in his repetitions of “walk away” before announcing, “I’m leaving but I don’t know where to.”
Opener “At the Bottom of Everything” is a deeply spiritual tune about self-realization, beginning with a spoken monologue about a bored woman on a plane that suffers massive engine failure and begins a fatal plummet into the ocean. “Where are we going?” she asks the man next to her, who replies, “We’re going to a party. It’s a birthday party. It’s your birthday party. Happy birthday darling. We love you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much.” At which point the song begins, with Oberst mixing social protest with an odd sense of spiritual ecstasy, singing as the plane meets sea, “And then we’ll get down there, way down to the very bottom of everything/And then we’ll see it, oh we’ll see it, we’ll see it, we’ll see it.” See what, you ask? That in Oberst’s words, “I’m happy just because/I found out I am really no one.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; this is one of the most powerful expressions of spirituality ever recorded, right up there with the best songs of John Coltrane and Van Morrison and the Mountain Goats’ great “Against Pollution.”
“I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” is one great bummer of an LP, and like most such albums is redeemed by its auteur’s willingness to face himself in the mirror and tell the unvarnished truth about what he sees. It’s also redeemed by its moments of pure beauty, and even joy. The lines, “And then we’ll get down there, way down to the very bottom of everything/And then we’ll see it, oh we’ll see it, we’ll see it, we’ll see it” say it all for me; as sad as it may be, we may all have to visit the ocean floor to see the truth about ourselves, but it won’t be a terrifying moment, but one of sheer spiritual acceptance and joy. To find out you are really no one and to find happiness in that fact; let’s face it, the Buddha couldn’t have said it better.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
