A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
ON February 15 this year, Conor Oberst turned 40. It is, he admits, hard for him to imagine he’d reach that landmark age. “Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be here,” he laughs, sounding more bemused than amused. “I didn’t think I’d be anywhere so I’m stoked… but it is weird.”
It’s not as if Oberst is especially self-destructive; to the contrary, he had a fear of dying on a par with Woody Allen. Listen to his early canon, beginning with 2000’s Fevers And Mirrors, and you’ll find evidence of his dark fears in such songs as “Something Vague”, “When The Curious Girl Realizes She Is Under Glass” or “I Don’t Want To Die In A Hospital”. There’s even a playlist on Spotify playfully titled “Bright Eyes Songs That Aren’t (All) About Death”.
These fears led Oberst to a renowned Florida spiritual community in 2006. There, he asked a cadre of seers, mystics and spiritualists whether he’d be here for the long haul. He documented one of his psychic readings on “Clairaudients (Kill Or Be Killed)”, opener on 2007 Bright Eyes LP Cassadaga.
“I wanted reassurance that my life wasn’t coming to an abrupt ending, Oberst admits. “She told me not to worry, I wasn’t going to die any time soon. So that part turned out to be right, for sure.”
What those clairvoyants didn’t predict was how jarring the next decade would be for the musician: a 10-year span that resulted in a false rape allegation, a benign cyst on his brain, a divorce, the death of his older brother, and the disbandment of Bright Eyes. But if they had, would it have altered the way Conor Oberst lived his life? The only thing for certain is that had he known, Bright Eyes’ 10th album, Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was, would be a very different record.
OBERST HAS been making music, at 13. He founded Bright Eyes in 1995, first as a solo project, then adding his two friends Nate Walcott and Mike Mogis in 2006. Writing sometimes as many as four or five songs a day, he recorded florid, fractured poetry and invective onto his father’s four-track, some of it landing on . Released the month before his 18th birthday, it was a portentous set, full of uncommon wisdom, prophecy and a jaundiced worldview unusual for someone his age.
