Ein paar Auszüge aus LIFTED Or The Story Is In The Soil Keep Your Ear To The Ground von den Bright Eyes. Ich hoffe das ist nicht zu lang oder so, der Herr Conor Oberst kann sich scheinbar nicht kürzer fassen.


Bowl Of Oranges

The rain, it started tapping on the window near my bed. There was a loophole in my dreaming, so I got out of it. And to my surprise my eyes were wide and already open. Just my nightstand and my dresser where those nightmares had just been.
So I dressed myself and left then, out into the gray streets. But everything seemed different and completely new to me. The sky, the trees, houses, buildings, even my own body. And each person I encountered, I couldn't wait to meet.
I came up a doctor who appeared in quite poor health. I said "(I am terribly sorry but) there is nothing 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 would help."
So I sat with him a while and then I asked him how he felt.
He said, "I think I'm cured. No, in fact, I'm sure of it. Thank you Stranger, for your therapeutic smile."
So that is how I learned the lesson that everyone is alone. And your eyes must do some raining if you are ever going to grow. But when crying don't help and you can't compose yourself. It is best to compose a poem, an honest longing or simple song of hope.
That is why I'm singing... Baby don't worry cause now I got your back. And every time you feel like crying, I'm gonna try and make you laugh. And if I can't, if it just hurts too bad, then we will wait for it to pass and I will keep you company through those days so long and black.
And we'll just keep working on the problem we know we'll never solve of Love's uneven remainder. But if the world could remain in a frame like a painting on a wall. Then I think we would see the beauty. Then we would stand staring in awe at our still lives posed like a bowl of oranges,
like a story told by the fault lines and the soil.



Nothing Gets Crossed Out

The future has got me worried, such awful thoughts. My head is a carousel of pictures. The spinning never stops. I just want someone to walk in front and I'll follow the leader. Like when I fell under the weight of a schoolboy crush. I started carrying her books and doing lots of drugs. I almost forgot who I was, but came to my senses. Now I try to be assertive. I'm making plans. I want to rise to the occasion, yeah, meet all of their demands. But all I do is just lay in bed and hide under the covers. I know I should be brave but I'm just afraid of all this change.
It's hard to focus through all this doubt. I keep making "To Do" lists but nothing ever gets crossed out. Even working on the record seems pointless now. When the world ends, who's gonna hear it? But I try and take some comfort in written words, yeah Tim I heard your album and it's better than good. When you get off tour I think we should hang and black out together. Because I've been feeling sentimental for days gone by...all those summers singing, drinking, laughing, wasting out time. Remember all those songs and the way we smiled in those basements made of music. But now I've got to crawl to get anywhere at all. I'm not as strong as I thought.
So when I'm lost in a crows, I hope that you'll pick me out. Oh, how I long to be found. The grass grew high. I laid down. Now, wait for a hand to lift me up, help me stand. I have been laying so low don't want to lay here no more. I But if everything that happens is supposed to be and it is predetermined, you can't change your destiny. Then I guess I'll just keep moving and someday, maybe, I'll get to where I'm going.



Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And Be Loved)

The animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness. A baby cried hard in an apartment complex, as I pass a car buried under the influence. The city is driving me out of my mind.
I have seen a child is caught in the sad trap of gravity. He falls from the lowest branch of the apple tree and lands in the grass and weeps for his dignity.
Next time he will not aim so high. Yeah, next time, neither will I.
A mother takes loans out, sends her kids off to colleges. Her family is reduced to names on a shopping list.
Meanwhile, a coroner kneels beneath a great, wooden crucifix.
He know that there are worse things than being alone.
I have learned to retreat at the first sign of danger. I mean, why wait around, if it's just to surrender? Ambition, I have found, can only lead to failure.
I do not read the reviews. No, I am not singing for you.
I stood dropping a coin into the pit of a well. And I would throw my whole billfold if I thought it would help. With all these wishes I make, I should by something great, at least a telephone call home.
My teachers, they built the retaining wall memory, all those multiple choices I answered so quickly. And I got my grades back and forgot just as easily, but as least I got an A.
So I don't have them to blame.
I should stop pointing fingers; reserve my judgment of all those public action figures, the cowboy president. So loud behind the bullhorn so proud they can't admit when they have made a mistake.
While poison ink spews from a speechwriter's pen, he knows that he doesn't have to say it, so it don't bother him. "Honesty" "Accuracy" are really just "Popular Opinion."
And the approval rating is high, so someone is going to die.
ABC, NBC, CBS: Bullshit. They give us fact or fiction? I guess an even split. And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment. We are still the pawns in their game. As they take an eye for an eye until no one can see, we must stumble blindly forward, repeating history. Well, I guess that we all fit into your slogan on the fast food marquee: Red blooded, White skinned oh and the Blues.
I got the Blues! I got the Blues! That's me! That's me!
Well, I awoke in relief. My sheets and tubes were all tangled weak from whiskey and pills, in a Chicago hospital. My father was there, in a chair, by the window, staring so far away. I tried talking, just whispered, "...so sorry...so selfish..." He stopped me and said, "Child I love you regardless and there is nothing you could do that would ever change this. I'm not angry. It happens. You just can't do it again."
So now I try to keep up, I have been exchanging my currency. While a million objects pass through my periphery. So now I am rubbing my eyes because they are starting to bother me. I have been staring too long at the screen. But where was it when I first heard the sound of humility? It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody. How grateful I was then to be part of the mystery, to love and be loved. Let's just hope that is enough.