Conor Oberst is the uber-gifted singer/songwriter of the folk-rock band Bright Eyes. You might recall that these same Bright Eyes opened for REM & Bruce Springsteen on the "Vote For Change" swing state tour last fall.
Bright Eyes latest record "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" is brilliant, and gets my nomination as Record of the Year for 2005. Highly Recommended!
Anyway, here http://www.montrealmirror.com/2005/011305/cover_music.html] are a few choice comments Mr. Oberst shared with the Montreal Mirror:
M: So how did you feel on November 3?
CO: The first feeling was disbelief, wanting to wake up from it, wishing it wasn't true, and that turned into devastation and hopelessness and helplessness and fear and anger. I still feel a lot of that, but I've realized that it's not productive to dwell in that negative space. It's too dangerous to give up hope. Now's the time for Americans who feel the way I feel to educate ourselves more and become louder in our dissent.
M: In your case, does that mean more political content in your music?
CO: It's hard because I never considered writing about politics until I had to, until it was keeping me up at night, but I don't want it to totally consume my thoughts. I wanna write songs about whatever inspires me in life. I still believe in the ability of music to communicate ideas and open people's minds and hearts, but with politics, I prefer to focus on the way it affects individuals more than, like, "Here's my manifesto in a song."
M: Do you see yourself contributing to the 2008 campaign the way you did last year?
CO: Yes. As ideas or issues that I believe in come up, whether they're political or social in nature, I'll be open to becoming involved. For whatever it's worth, I'm able to voice my opinion in a somewhat public forum so I feel obligated to do that. Obviously, I have no problem speaking my mind.
M: How about running for office?
CO: (laughs) They'd have a pretty easy time ruining my credibility, if you know what I mean.
M: But look at Bush. If you claim to be born again, you can get away with anything.
CO: I suppose you can clean up your record if you have to, but I don't see that in my future.
M: After the election, there was endless analysis of the so-called red-state/blue-state divide. You seem ideally placed to weigh in on that.
CO: Well, it's not that people here are stupid. They're somewhat traditional and they're somewhat slow to change and they fall for the pseudo-nationalism/patriotism that's being thrust upon them, but they're also very practical. Once Middle America realizes that the Bush administration is only serving the smallest sliver of the population - big business, the wealthiest of Americans and the extreme Christian right - and once they realize that all the jobs that have been lost aren't coming back and three more neighbourhood kids have gone off and died for no reason, public opinion is gonna shift. My fear isn't that people aren't gonna catch on to Bush's bullshit, it's the damage that he can do in the next four years.
M: How do you feel about the right wing's exploitation of religion?
CO: Pretty much every president has evoked God in speeches, but with Bush it's way scarier 'cause he's on some kind of deranged quest to serve his Christian values, which aren't very Christian at all.
Thanks for reading!!!