by Tom Fitzpatrick

Created on: February 15, 2007   Last Updated: March 06, 2010

Released in early 2005 along with 'Digital Ash in a Digital Urn', this album helped to cement Bright Eyes status as one of those rare artists whose music appeals to mainstream audiences despite its quirky sound and independent-label backing.

The album's sound is best described as a folky, ballady sound which Rolling Stone compared to 'being at one of Bright Eyes' gigs where he just about plays with whoever of his musical friends turn up'. Acoustic guitar dominates this album as an antidote to the more experimental, synth sound of 'Digital Ash'. This is Oberst performing at roots level, melancholy strumming and mournful singing to give the small venue, spotlight on a man with a guitar and a tale to tell feel to the album.

In Conor Oberst, there is a sound of melancholy mixed with purpose. A man who satirises life and offers his listeners a chance to rebel with him. A voice that looks around and sees all things bad and beautiful and makes sweeping, faltering statements about life's oddities and harsh realities. A man who reconciles the harsh subject matter that he recounts while singing, with the gentle, harmonious sound of the music that accompanies the tale.
The album begins with a social commentary, a minute or so in which Oberst recounts a fictional story about a man and a woman on a plane. She's reading an article about a third-world country she can't even pronounce the name of. The only thing she's heard him say is to order his bloody mary. And so begins a song about life and all its futility and all its hypocrisy in which lyrics about 'criminals strapped firmly to their chairs' are juxtaposed with lyrics such as 'death will bring us back to god; just like the setting sun is returned to the lonesome ocean'....

Emmylou Harris joins the vocals for several tracks with 'Old Soul Song' one of the stand-out tracks on the album where the music plays lightly and inobtrusively in the background while Oberst and Harris harmonise to endless breathless lyrics and haunting choruses.

In November of 2004, Bright Eyes became the first act to take the #1 and #2 slots on the Billboard Hot 100 Single Sales since Puff Daddy in 1997. 'Lua' was one of these tracks, taken from I'm Wide Awake It's Morning and one of the successful singles along with a poignant love song, 'The First day of My Life'.

While each single stands alone as a terrific individual piece of music, the beauty of the album is in the way Oberst's mentality remains the same throughout and yet he produces

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