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I've Been Part Of Running A Label Since I Was A Kid, So I Understand How It Works. But The More And More I Learn About It, The Less And Less Interested I Am In It.

-Conor Oberst

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I've Been Part Of

Conor Oberst

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I've Been Part Of Running A Label Since I Was A Kid, So I Understand How It Works. But The More And More I Learn About It, The Less And Less Interested I Am In It.

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More From Conor Oberst

So When Your New Eyes Meet Mine They Won't See No Lies, Just Love.

I Kind Of Go In Waves With Reading. Sometimes I Read All The Time, And Sometimes I Can't Get Settled Enough To Focus.

Rock And Roll Seems To Have Had A Mellowing In The Business Where It Got Harder To Sell Individual Records And Make Money Doing That.

I Understand Why People Get Desensitized And Roll Their Eyes When They Hear A Protest Song, Or Even A Politician Making Some Flowery Speech. It Doesn't Really Change Anything.

It Seems Like Everything I Do Musically I Tend To Lose A Few Fans And Gain A Few Fans, And It All Kind Of Evens Out.

And Me I'm In The Bathroom Crying Out My Eyelids Because It's Hard To Be A Man When You're Scared, Just Like A Little Kid.

A Lot Of The Mythology That Sprung Up Around Haile Selassie, It's Not Like Something He Asked For, Having People Deify Him. That's Pretty Heavy. I Don't Know What You Do In That Situation.

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.

I Don't Hold Anything Against Barack Obama. I Just Think The System Is So Corrupt, It Doesn't Matter How Well-intentioned Someone Is, As I Believe He Was And Is. At The End Of The Day, I Think It Just Comes Down To Money. This Is All About Class Warfare. All Of Our Political Problems.

Desaparecidos Try To Be The Opposite Of Apathetic. There Are So Many Young People In America That Are Apathetic.

I Think Our Music Is More About Seeing Ourselves In Each Other And Trying To Find A More Humanistic Viewpoint For The World.

The One Recurring Theme In My Writing, And In My Life In General, Is Confusion. The Fact That Anytime You Think You Really Know Something, You're Going To Find Out You're Wrong - That Is The Rule. The Moments Where You Think You Have Something Figured Out, Those Are The Exceptions.

I Like Science Fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick And Vonnegut, And I Really Like Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale. And You Know, So Much Of Science Fiction Has To Do With Predicting What’s To Come, So I Think That’s Really Interesting.

There Is No Hell When You Die So Don't Look So Worried

I've Never Conceptualized Much Of What I Write About. Maybe, Once I'm Onto Something, I'll Conceptualize A Finished Record. I Want The Songs To Tie Together And Make Sense Together. I'm Not Like, "oh, I Want To Explore This Idea." That's Just Not How The Creative Process Works For Me. It's More Like Something Strikes Me, Or Finds Me, And Then I Wrestle With It After That. I Don't Sit Back In My Armchair, Like, "what Kind Of Philosophy Can I Explore Today?"

I'm Ripe For The Picking For The Scientologists - One Of Those Creeps. Someone's Got To Find Me. Some Little Weird Cult Can Just Pluck Me Up, Because I'm Ripe For The Picking.

A Kid That Picks Up A Record, He Doesn't Need To Know Anything Other Than The Music And Have It In His Or Her Headphones. They're Getting Ideas Directly, It's Like Someone Whispering In Their Ear. That's Such A Personal Way To Receive Information.

Music Becomes Very Personal. When You Marry A Message You Want To Send Out Into The World With Good Music, All Of A Sudden You Have A Very Potent Way Of Delivering Your Message.

I've Given Up Trying To Understand What People Think About Me.

And I Never Thought This Life Was Possible,you're The Yellow Bird That I've Been Waiting For. In Polaroids You Were Dressed In Women's Clothes Were You Made Ashamed, Why'd You Lock Them In A Drawer? Well, I Don't Think That I Ever Loved You More Well Let The Poets Cry Themselves To Sleep And All Their Tearful Words Will Turn Back Into Steam The Sound Of Loneliness Makes Me Happier.

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. There Is Nothing As Lucky, As Easy, Or Free

To Me, A Political Song Is Also A Personal Song. Most Political Activism Has Been Driven By Empathy For Other People And The Desire For A World That's Less Divisive. Even If Songs Aren't Overtly Political, They Can Make A Listener More Empathetic.

People Resist Change; If They Like Something, Then They Want You To Keep Doing It Over And Over - But I Think If You Like What A Particular Band Or Artist Does, Then You Should Want To See What They're Going To Do Next.

A Boycott Is, Inherently, A Blunt Instrument. It Is An Imperfect Weapon, A Carpet Bomb, When All Involved Would Prefer A Surgical Strike.

Some Days I Feel Like I'm An Atheist. Most Days, I Feel Like An Agnostic. On A Very Rare Day, I Feel Like I'm A Believer In Something.

And The Sad Act Like Lepers They Stick To The Shadows They Long To Ring Bells Of Warning To Tell Of Their Coming So That The Pure Can Shut Their Doors.

Life Is Always Surprising To Me. When You Think It's Going To Get Dull, It Never Really Does.

My Dad, Who Plays Guitar And Piano And Was In Cover Bands, Along With My Older Brother, Matt, Taught Me Guitar And Stuff. I Started Writing Acoustic Songs And Playing By Myself In 7th Grade.

We're All Too Busy Working, Entertaining Ourselves With Forty Hours, Television And Prescription Pills Well, I Take Two A Day To Help My Brain Behave It Never Does, But Who's To Say? At Least My Doctor Gets Paid.

I Prefer Career Artists That Have Spent Time Honing Their Craft, As Opposed To, 'i Won A Karaoke Contest On A Reality Show And Now I Have A Record.' That's Such A Drag. The Music That Comes Out Of It Is So Poor.

They Say It's Better To Bury Your Sadness In A Graveyard Or Garden That Waits For The Spring To Wake From Its Sleep And Burst Into Green.

With Science And Reason Throughout History, What People Believed Turned Out To Be False. So I Like To Keep An Open Mind To All Perspectives And Learn And Become More Fully Realised As A Person. I Just Feel We're Never Going To Know What The Full Picture Is.

I Like The Alice In Wonderland Sculpture In Central Park. I Love How It's Been Rained On Forever And Looks Worn Down By Time.

The Way My Life's Structured, I Don't Stay In A Place For More Than A Couple Months.

Every Time I Finish A Song... Most Of The Time It's In My Own Head, Like This Sounds Too Much Like A Townes Van Zandt Song, Or Whoever. I Realize There Are So Many Melodies And Chord Progressions In Pop And Rock Music That Are So Similar That You Can Kind Of Trace It Back To Other Things. Most Of The Time It's Just In Your Head.

We Made Love On The Living Room Floor With The Noise In The Background Of A Televised War And In That Defeaning Pleasure I Thought I Heard Someone Say If We Walk Away They'll Walk Away

On Every Bright Eyes Record, There's Some Kind Of Sound Collage That Begins It. Some Of Them Have Dialogue, Some Don't. I Like It Because It Can Kind Of Slow Down The Attention Span A Bit. It's A Way To Draw You In To The Rest Of The Record.

Everything Must Belong Somewhere. I Know That Now, That's Why I'm Staying Here.

I Find That Life Is Easier When It Is Just A Blur With No Details To Confuse Who Or What Or Where I Was So When The Ending Comes The Full Regret Will Be Obscure

I Always Embrace The Worst-case Scenario.

Worst Case Scenario

It's In Vogue To Have A Cause And Give Money In Charity. But To Actually Speak Up And Say Something Like, I'm Pissed About This" - That Doesn't Seem To Be Very Popular Unless You're Writing A Blog Or Tweeting.

I Have On Many Occasions Spoken My Mind From Stage. I Have Offered Organizations Table Space By The Merch Booth. I Have Donated A Dollar-a-ticket, Or The Entire Guarantee, To Different Causes. I Have Registered Voters. I Have Played On Behalf Of Political Candidates.

When I Run Into A Person Or A Kid That Comes Up And Gives Me The Spiel About, 'hey, I Got Your Record At This Time In My Life, And It Really Helped Me,' That Stuff Totally Still Rings True. If You're Standing There Talking To Someone, It's Really Easy To Tell If They're Being Authentic Or Not. And That's Great.

Men With Purple Hearts Carry Silver Guns And They Will Kill A Man For What His Father Has Done. But What My Father Did, I Don't Live It: No, I Am Not Him.

Everything That Happens Is Supposed To Be And It's All Pre-determined, Can't Change Your Destiny Guess I'll Just Keep Moving, Someday Maybe I'll Get To Where I'm Going

We've All Seen The Power Music Has To Spread Messages Of Solidarity And Hope.

Love's An Excuse To Get Hurt.

I'm A Real Music Fan, So I Listen To All Kinds Of Music All The Time. I Listen To A Lot Of What My Friends Or People I Know Are Listening To. I'm Always Checking Out New Bands.

My Brother Went To College To Become A Doctor And If He Studies Hard Enough He'll End Up Just Like Papa, Who Hates His Life.

The Drunk Kids, The Catholics They're All About The Same They're Waiting For Something Hoping To Be Saved

One By One I Drowned All The People I’d Been.

I Have A Car In Nebraska. When I Bought It, They Gave Me A Satellite Radio, And There's An 'indie-rock' Station. It's Just Nothing I'm Interested In.

You Can't Manufacture Inspiration, So A Lot Of It Is Still A Waiting Game For Me. There's Still A Lot Of Mystery To Songwriting. I Don't Have A Method That I Can Go Back To - They Either Come Or They Don't.

I Started To Sink Like The Moon Tends To Do If You Stare At It Too Long Then You Blink And It's Gone.

Our Band Is Different In The Sense That We All Are Involved With A Lot Of Different Projects. It's Hard To Say When We'll Record Again, But We're Not Calling It Quits Right Away.

I Would Say I'm A Humanist. I Like That. I Mean, I Don't Claim To Know Anything, But I'm Curious About It All. I'm Always Fascinated When People Really Fervently Believe, Because I Have Such A Hard Time Believing Anything.

We [desaparecidos] Have To Make The Message And The Music And The Packaging As Appealing As Possible - As Taco Bell As Possible: Mediocre And No One Can Be Offended By It And Everyone Can Sort Of Enjoy It And We Can Play It On The Radio.

There's Nothing That The Road Cannot Heal

I Don't Feel Real Confident Expressing Myself Except When I'm Writing. I Feel Kind Of Scatterbrained. I Can See Everything From Both Sides And That Makes It Hard To Reach Conclusions. Writing Enables Me To Clarify Things.

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. I Wanna Be A Shower In The Morning That Wakes You Up And Makes You Clean I Know I'm Just The Weather Against Your Window As You Sleep Through A Winter's Dream

I Do Think That Music Has A Special Ability To Get Behind Enemy Lines And Win Hearts And Minds.

It's Hard To Get People To Focus On One Idea.

They Say They Don't Know When But A Day Is Gonna Come. When There Won't Be A Moon And There Won't Be A Sun. It Will Just Go Black. It Will Just Go Back To The Way It Was Before.

It's Not A Movie, No Private Screening This Method Acting, Well, I Call That Living

When Everything Is Lonely I Can Be My Best Friend.

Like Being Alone

I Think There's A Weird Self-affirmation Thing That Happens In Popular Music In General. It Seems Like Every Song I Hear On The Radio Is Like, "listen To Me Roar!" Or "this Is My Fight Song!"

The Sound Of Loneliness Makes Me Happier.

Little Soldier, Little Insect You Know War It Has No Heart It Will Kill You In The Sunshine Or Happily In The The Dark Where Kindness Is A Card Game Or A Bent Up Cigarette In The Trenches, In The Hard Rain With A Bullet And A Bet.

There's A Lot Of Optimism In Changing Scenery, In Seeing What's Down The Road.

I Try Not To Think About The Idea Of Reaching More And More People, Because Once You Get In That Mindset, I Think You Lose The Point Of Why You're Doing It In The First Place. Still, The Best Feeling I Ever Get Is When I Finish A Song, And It Exists, And It Didn't Exist Before, And Now It's There, And It Makes Me Feel A Certain Way.

There's A Very Fine Line Between One Person's Reality And Another Person's Fantasy.

I Swear That I'm Dying Slowly But It's Happening, And If The Perfect Spring Is Waiting Somewhere... Just Take Me There.

For A Sunrise Or A Sunset, You're Manic Or You're Depressed. Will You Ever Feel Ok?

I Really Just Want To Be Warm Yellow Light That Pours Over Everyone I Love.

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.

If You Love Something, Give It Away...

Because The Truth Is That Gossip Is As Good As Gospel In This Town. You Can Save Face But You Won't Ever Save Your Soul. And That's A Fact.

I Mean, You Just Go Down The Line, And With Any Of These Issues, It's About Rich People Staying Rich. And Using Poverty As A Weapon Against People. That's What We See Every Day. And I'm Not An Economist, So I Can't Speak To The Nuances Of It, But Just Common Sense Tells Me The Whole Thing Is Corrupt.

My Head's A Carousel Of Pictures And The Spinning Never Stops.

I'm Kind Of Like, "never Say Never."

Never Say Never

We, The Desaparecidos, Are Perfectly Prepared For People To Hate What We're Saying Or Not Like What We're Saying.

My Favorite Rhymes Are Sort Of Half-rhymes Where You Might Just Get The Vowel Sound The Same, But It's Not Really A True Rhyme. That Gives You Far More Flexibility To Capture The Feeling You're Trying To Express. But Sometimes It's Best Not To Have Any Rhyme.

I Don't See Any Harm In Letting Whatever Comes Out Come Out Of You, Even If It's Sort Of Weird, Or Dark, Or Painful, Or Too Embarrassing, Or Whatever. I Feel Like You Might As Well Get It Down For Yourself. It Can't Do Anything But Help You Get To Where You Want To Be By Recognizing The Thoughts That You're Having.

When I Try To Explain To People The Big Influences In My Life, Or At Least When I First Started, The Most Important Ones Were My Friends Who Were Also Writing Songs And Were Typically Four Or Five Years Older Than Me.

Each Desaparecidos's Song Has A Seed That It Came From. We're Trying To Take That And Broaden It Out And Make It Resonate With People.

Why Are You Scared To Dream Of God When It's Salvation That You Want?

All Those Experiences Were A Chance To Learn More About Music. Playing With The Valley Band Is Like Such A "live" Band. I Mean, Really, In Many Ways Bright Eyes Is Really A Studio Project. We Form Bands To Tour, But It Really Is - You Know, We Take The Songs And We Figure Out How To Decorate Them And It's All In The Studio, We Build The Songs That Way. Whereas Mystic Valley Band Was The Exact Opposite, Where Everybody Knows What They Are Gonna Be Playing On The Song And There's Sort Of A General Stylistic Approach, And Then It's Just Plug In And Play.

I Need Some Meaning I Can Memorize. The Kind I Have Always Seems To Slip My Mind.

I've Thought About The Idea Of, 'can Happiness And Creativity Co-exist?' So Much Of What I've Done, I Think, Has Been Based On Being Dissatisfied Or Incomplete Or Lonely. The Answer Is, 'there Isn't An Answer, Necessarily.

In A Coma, You Don't Dream, You Just Hope That Someone Sits With You.

Maybe There's A Different Story When It Comes To Hip-hop Or Different Genres, But As Far As Rock Music Goes, I Think There Is A Sort Of Fear Of Saying Things People Might Be Apt To Criticize. Our Band Is The Opposite Of That.

Screaming Is Bad For The Voice, But It's Good For The Heart.

I've Cried, And You'd Think I'd Be Better For It, But The Sadness Just Sleeps, And It Stays In My Spine The Rest Of My Life.

I Came Upon A Doctor Who Appeared In Quite Poor Health. I Said, 'there's Nothing That I Can Do For You That You Can't Do For Yourself.' He Said, 'oh Yes You Can. Just Hold My Hand. I Think That That Would Help.' So I Sat With Him A While Then I Asked Him How He Felt. He Said, 'i Think I'm Cured.'

The Only Thing Major Labels Can Really Offer Is Money.

As Long As I Can Buy Records And Books And Maybe Some Clothes, I'm Pretty Stoked. I Don't Need A Yacht Or Anything.

Considering Our History, I Can Think Of Nothing More American Than An Immigrant.

I Really Believe In The Way The Energy Can Consolidate In Certain Geographical Spots. You Can Find It In A Lot Of Different Places, Beautiful Natural Spots, Or If You Look At Islam Or Judaism Or Christianity, These Ideas Of Holy Places.

I'm Not The Most Technically Savvy Person In The World. Like, I'm Not Good At Troubleshooting When Stuff Happens To My Digital Music.

I Love Story Songs. It's Just, For Me, They're Harder To Write, And Sometimes They Sound Too Intended Or Something.

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.

I Believe That Vinyl Will Outlast Cds. There's No Reason For It, But It Stays Around Because There Are Still People That Want Them.

I Like To Feel The Burn Of The Audience's Eyes When I'm Whispering All My Darkest Secrets Into The Microphone.

I Definitely Think Religion Is Responsible For A Lot Of The Evils Of The World. I Mean That's Not Really In Debate. But At The Same Time, I Think Whatever Gets You Through The Day, Whatever Helps You Make Sense Of Life I'm Not Gonna Begrudge My Grandmother With Her Rosary Beads. It Works For Them. And At The End Of The Day, I Don't Claim To Know The Answer To Anything.

I Think That Obviously The Quest For Purpose, Or Meaning, Or Understanding To Existence Is Something That I Always Think About, Always Deal With. I Guess Everybody Does - That Existential Crisis Of Human Condition. It's Nothing New. But I'd Love To Come Across Something That Really Made Me Believe In Something.

I Think Different Musical Collaborators Bring Out Different Qualities In My Songs And I Like That.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez Is One Of My All-time Favorite Writers. I Feel Spiritual When Reading His Words, Even Though They're Translated. I Wish Desperately That I Could Read It In Its Original Language. I Already Feel Like I'm Going To Church When I Read Him; Imagine If I Could Read It In The Original.

You Could Be Happy, The Minute You Try. Why Won't You Try? Oh Won't You Try?

The World's Become A Little Too Mean.

To Outsiders It Probably Seems Like Splitting Hairs, But To Me, Bright Eyes Is A Simply The Collaboration Between Myself And Mike Mogis And Nate Walcott. What You Hear Is Definitely The Sum Of All Our Ideas And Represents All Three Of Us. But I Still Write The Songs Myself.

The Bible's Blind, The Torah's Deaf, The Qur'an Is Mute; If You Burned Them All Together You'd Get Close To The Truth.

I Keep Drinking The Ink From My Pen And I'm Balancing History Books Up On My Head But It All Boils Down To One Quotable Phrase If You Love Something Give It Away

The Idea Of Forever Is Kind Of Ridiculous, Which Is Unfortunate Because Its Kind Of A Nice Thing To Say, You Know. I Think It Softens The Blow Of Mortality And Having To Say Goodbye To Everything You Know And Everyone You Love And All That Kind Of Thing.

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.

Sometimes I Daydream About Having A Farm And A Wife And Some Babies And Watching The Grass Grow, But You Have To Meet The Right Person For That.

When I Was Younger, I Was Somewhat Of An Idealist. I Guess I'm A Little Bit More Of A Realist Now. I Think There's A Lot That Can Be Done To Make The World A Better Place, But It's More About Choosing Your Battles.

Pronouns Really Don't Matter In A Song - 'i' Or 'he' Or 'she' Or Even Subscribing A Lyric To An Inanimate Object.

Inanimate Objects

So I Wait For The Day When I'll Hear The Key As It Turns In The Lock And The Guard Will Say To Me, "oh My Patient Prisoner You Waited For This Day And Finally, You Are Free! You Are Free! You Are Free!

If The World Could Remain Within A Frame Like A Painting On The Wall, I Think We'd See The Beauty Then And Stand Staring In Awe.

Much Of Appreciating Art Or Music Is Really The Interpretation Of The Listener. To A Certain Extent It's Projection - It's What People Need Or Lack In Themselves That They Then Put Upon These People That They Admire.

I Think That Hip-hop Is More Of An Individual Effort. That Means You're An Artist From The Streets, They Expect You To Rap About The Streets, Because That's What Happens There.

And Your Eyes Must Do Some Raining If You're Ever Gonna Grow / When Crying Don't Help, You Can't Compose Yourself / It's Best To Compose A Poem, An Honest Verse Of Longing / Or A Simple Song Of Hope.

The First Music I Ever Got Into Was The '80s Alternative Bands That My Brother Listened To, Like The Cure And The Smiths And R.e.m. And Fugazi. I Can Remember Specifically Saying The Cure Was My Favorite Band Back In Second Grade.

Once You Realize That Everyone Is In The Same Boat, That Everyone Is Just As Insecure And Childlike As Everyone Else, That All These Jokers In D.c. Ruining Our World Are Just Greedy Kids Grabbing For Marbles - I Think That Realization Means You're An Adult.

You Should Never Be Embarrassed By Your Trouble With Living, Because It's The Ones With The Sorest Throats Who Have Done The Most Singing.

It's Dangerous To Buy Into Praise And Criticism For What You Do When You're Trying To Present Your Music To People. I Don't Ignore It Completely, But I Don't Dwell On It Too Much.

The Worst Thing You Can Do As An Artist Is To Repeat Yourself.

Love's An Excuse To Get Hurt And To Hurt. Do You Like To Hurt? I Do, I Do Then Hurt Me.

Popular Music Is All About Traveling At The Speed Of You And Elevating The Individual As The Highest Thing In The World.

We Must Memorize Nine Numbers And Deny We Have A Soul.

Let The Poets Cry Themselves To Sleep, And All Their Tearful Words Will Turn Back Into Steam.

If I Loved You, Well That's My Fault

It's Always The Negative Things That Seep Through Into Your Consciousness. Most Of The Positive Things Just Roll Off Real Fast. I Just Try Not To Pay Attention To It, Because I've Never Read Anything About My Band That's Accurate.

I Know A Girl Who Cries When She Practices Violin Because Each Note Sounds So Pure It Just Cuts Into Her, And Then The Melody Comes Pouring Out Her Eyes. Now, To Me, Everything Else Just Sounds Like A Lie.

I've Been Part Of Running A Label Since I Was A Kid, So I Understand How It Works. But The More And More I Learn About It, The Less And Less Interested I Am In It.

Rastafarianism And Reggae Music Have Always Kind Of Resonated With Me. Those Ideas Of Redemption, Liberation And Overcoming Oppression Through Music, Weed And Community. Fighting Evil Through Love And Music, I Think It's Just A Really Powerful Idea.

I Wanna Be Your Happiness. I Wanna Be Your Common Sense Pain.

I Went Right From Wunderkind To Washed Up. Old. Been Around Too Long. That's Just The Way I Feel. That's My Internal Dialogue.

In A Way, To Have Whatever People Talk About As "crossover Success," I Think It Means You Start Making Bad Music. I Mean, When I'm Flipping Through The Channels And See The Vmas Or Something, I Don't Really See Any Music There.

One Of My Favorite Modern American Authors Is Denis Johnson. I'm Deeply Inspired By All Of His Work - I Rip Him Off Constantly.

I’m Always Fascinated When People Really Fervently Believe, Because I Have Such A Hard Time Believing Anything. When People Have Real Faith In Something, It’s Fascinating To Me. And The Fact That So Many People, In Surveys, So Many People Say They Do. It Kind Of Blows My Mind.

When You Look At What People Consider Success In The Music Industry, It's Just Terrible Music.

I'm Happy Just Because I Found Out I Am Really No One

Hip-hop Music Has Done A Very Good Job Of Maintaining The Political Context, Where They Stand And Not Giving A Sh-t What People Think.

I Think In A Lot Of Ways Unconditional Love Is A Myth. My Mom's The Only Reason I Know It's A Real Thing.

Unconditional Love

On Good Days, I Can See The Inherent Goodness In People, And That Human Beings Have A High Capacity To Learn And Adapt. But Things Like The Environment, Nuclear Weapons And Ideas Like Peak Oil - If You Think About Them Too Much, They Can Really Freak You Out.

You Mean Nothing To No One But That's Nobody's Fault...

I Want To Be Enriched By The Music I Listen To. That's The Reason It Never Really Exists In The Mainstream. Because That's Not What Most People Are After.

Joe Arpaio Needs No Help From Me Getting Attention. For Years He Has Been A Beacon Of Bigotry And Intolerance For All The World To See. The List Of Human And Civil-rights Abuses He’s Committed In Maricopa County Is Long And Well Documented.

I Have Many Friends Who Are Both Mexican And Mexican-american And Others Who, I Guess You Would Say, Are Somewhere In Between. The Ironic Thing Is That All Three Of Those Categories Often Exist Inside Of The Same Family.

I Find That Moving Keeps Me Optimistic, The Idea Of What's Going To Be Down The Road A Bit Or Around The Next Bend.

We're Going To Sing About Things That Matter To Us. The Balancing Act Is To Present These Ideas But Also Make The Music Exciting And Sort Of Fun Enough That Even If You're Not Paying Attention To The Lyrics, You Might Still Like The Songs Anyway. That's The Idea.

There's A Major Underlying Idea As You Grow Up That You Need To Just Save Your Money And Get That Affordable Housing At The Edge Of Town Where You're Away From The City Where All The Crime Happens Or Whatever.

Art Is Essentially Communication. It Doesn't Exist In A Vacuum. That's Why People Make Art, So Other People Can Relate To It.

When You're 16 Or 17, I Think Like Most People That Age, The First Time You Experience Certain Things In Life, Whether It's Heartbreak Or Death Or Love, Obviously It's Going To Seem Like A Much Bigger Deal.

When People Have Real Faith In Something, It's Fascinating To Me. And The Fact That So Many People, In Surveys, So Many People Say They Do. It Kind Of Blows My Mind.

We Might Die From Medication But We Sure Killed All The Pain

Although Omaha Is My Birthplace And The Place I Grew Up, I Don't See Myself Spending Extended Amounts Of Time There. I Feel Almost More Comfortable And More At Peace In New York.

I'd Rather Be Working For A Paycheck, Than Waiting To Win The Lottery. Besides, Maybe This Time It's Different, I Mean, I Really Think You Like Me.

I Drug Your Ghost Across The Country, And We Plotted Out My Death. Every City And Memory We Whispered "here Is Where You Rest." Well I Was Determined In Chicago But I Dug My Teeth Into My Knees And I Settled For A Telephone, Sang Into Your Machine: "you Are My Sunshine, My Only Sunshine.

I Think There's So Much About Rasta Culture That's Interesting. Just The Idea Of Preaching One-ness, That We're All In This Together.

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.

When You Write A Song, The Goal Is Not To Convey The Details Of Your Life. You Should Write A Memoir Or Something If That's What You're Going To Do.

You Can Only Really Understand Good If You Have Bad, So The Idea Of Heaven Or Anything That Happens For Eternity, Even If It's Nice, I Can't Imagine It Being Nice Forever. Even The Idea Of Forever Is Kind Of Ridiculous, Which Is Unfortunate Because It's Kind Of A Nice Thing To Say, You Know.

I Believe That Vinyl Will Outlast Cds.

I Think There's A Danger, For Me At Least, In Retreating And Going Inward And Depression. I Have To Stay Diligent Against That Tendency.

Now I Believe That Lovers Should Be Draped In Flowers And Laid Entwined Together On A Bed Of Clover And Left There To Sleep, Left There To Dream Of Their Happiness.

Cause I Swear That I'm Dying, Slowly But Its Happening.

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).

There's All Body Types, But There's Just One Size.

And In The Morning When The Sun Rise. Look In The Water, See The Blue Sky. As If Heaven Has Been Laid There At Our Feet.

And I Sing And Sing Of Awful Things The Pleasure That My Sadness Brings.

I Liked The Idea Of Having A Record That's Reggae-influenced But Not Musically, Just Lyrically. I Think There's So Much About Rasta Culture That's Interesting. Just The Idea Of Preaching One-ness, That We're All In This Together. Which I Suppose Is At The Root Of Most Any Religion. You're Gonna Find It, If Taken In The Right Context.

Since The Songs Were Written Over A Five-year Period, I Think These Are Little Snapshots. Some People Call It Political Or Topical, But I Think Each Song Is Self-contained. I Think It Fits Together As A Picture Of The Last Half-decade Of Time.

My Feeling Is That I Think Writers In General Tend To Be Self-conscious And It Takes A Bit Of A Leap Of Faith Or Just Not Giving A Sh-t To Write Something You Know People Are Going To Criticize.

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

It's Exploding Bags, Aerosol Cans Southbound Buses, Peter Pan They Left It Up To Us Again I Thought You Knew The Drill It's Kill Or Be Killed.

If There's Ever A Kid Out There That Can't Afford To Buy The Music, I Still Want Them To Hear It, And Hopefully They'll Go To The Show, Or Buy A T-shirt From The Band. That's The Idea.

I Drink To Stay Warm, And To Kill Selected Memories

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