“First Day of My Life”

Conor Oberst was born on February 15th 1980 in Omaha Nebraska. He has been writing, recording and performing since 1992. He is mostly known for his work with the group “Bright Eyes” but he has also done solo projects and side projects such as Desaparicidos. Conor is also one of the founding members of Saddle Creek Records and Team Love Records, which started such bands as Rilo Kiley, The Faint, and Azura Ray.
With Bright Eyes, Conor has released 15 studio albums to this day. In 2005 the band came out with two albums at once, “Digital Ash in a Digital Urn” and “I’m Wide Awake it’s Morning.” The song I have chosen comes from “I’m Wide Awake…” and is the 6th track on the album. It’s a slow acoustic song about love, and love not being returned but overall has an upbeat tempo and meaning.
The song is all done acoustic with no percussion or electrical instruments, just the singer and the guitar, with very little other background instruments that you can only sometimes pick out backing up the guitar. This soft approach really lets you listen to the lyrics without being distracted and helps you feel the overall meaning of the song. With the lighter than normal background music and his soft-spoken voice the song is an easy listen that has a lot of emotion behind it. The style of writing he uses for his lyrics are very basic. He uses common words without any catchy hooks or chorus, which, to me makes his words have a deeper meaning. He’s not writing or making music for the radio or the general public, he’s writing about his life and his experiences and is just inviting you along for the ride.
The song is almost like a journey. When it starts you can’t quite figure out where it’s going to end up. The subtraction a repeating chorus helps you stay on this adventure and it helps you focus on listening to the words he’s saying. When you listen to Bright Eyes the lyrics are his main way of communicating with the audience, but that doesn’t mean you should take everything you hear at face value. He uses metaphors of very common things to help you understand exactly what is going on inside of him, such as the lyrics “I’d rather be working for a paycheck, than waiting to win the lottery.” If you take that line by itself than all you get out of it is he has a job, but in the song you realize he’s actually talking about relationships and that true love is the lottery and even though it’s what he wants he won’t waste his life away waiting for it. If you delve into it further it also compares how rare and lucky you have to be to win the lottery, just like with love.
I like this song because of its easy listen ability on the surface, and I think it cause of this its an easy, happy listen that doesn’t require you to think to much to get the overall meaning. Only if you choose to break down every line will you catch all the metaphors and what they mean, and that is why I think almost every Bright Eyes album has such strong replay value, and it’s why I think you’ll like them too.