Connor Oberst-Brilliant and Creative

Connor Oberst is the lead singer for the band Bright Eyes. His songs tend to deal with things such as life, love, god, and politics. Although many artists write songs about this content, the way he expresses himself is unique and in a way that most people can relate to at the same time. This coincides with psychologists definition that creativity is measured by how novel (unique) and appropriate (useful) something is. It is novel because he takes a very cliche idea or feelings and puts it into words that make it seem original and much more relatable or he touches on something that you have always thought but didn't know how to explain or put into words in a way that makes sense. I also think that his music is useful in the sense that many times his words capture a feeling or something that an individual is going through and it makes them feel better that someone else has the same feelings.

This an exert from a song called "at the bottom of everything" It begins with dialog between a man and a woman on a plane and the plane suddenly starts falling and they realize that they are all about to die. Then the song starts and it says a lot about life in general.

So there was this woman and she was on an airplane, and she was flying to meet her fiancé seaming high above the largest ocean on planet earth. She was seated next to this man she had tried to start conversations, but the only thing she had really heard him say was to order his Bloody Mary. She was sitting there and she was reading this really arduous magazine article about a third world country that she couldn’t even pronounce the name of. And she was feeling very bored and despondent. And then suddenly there was this huge mechanical failure and one of the engines gave out, and they started just falling thirty-thousand feet, and the pilots on the microphone and he’s saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh my god” and apologizing. And she looks at the man and says “Where are we going?” and he looks at her and he says “We’re going to a party. It’s a birthday party. It’s your birthday party. Happy birthday darling. We love you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much.” And then he starts humming this little tune, it kind of goes like this: 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4

We must talk in every telephone
Get eaten off the web
We must rip out all the epilogues in the books that we have read
And in the face of every criminal
Strapped firmly to a chair
We must stare, we must stare, we must stare

We must take all of the medicines too expensive now to sell
Set fire to the preacher who is promising us hell
And in the ear of every anarchist that sleeps but doesn’t dream
We must sing, we must sing, we must sing

It’ll go like this:

While my mother waters plants
My father loads his guns
He says death will give us back to god
Just like this setting sun is returned to this lonesome ocean

And then they splashed into the deep blue sea
It was a wonderful splash

We must blend into the choir
Sing ecstatic with the whole
We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul
And in this endless race for property and privilege to be one
We must run, we must run, we must run

We must hang up in the belfry
Where the bats and moonlight laugh
We must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past
And in the caverns of tomorrow
With just our flashlights and our love
We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge

And then we’ll get down there to the very bottom of everything
And we’ll see it, we’ll see it, we’ll see it

Oh my mornings coming back
The whole world’s waking up
In the city buses are swimming past
I’m happy just because
I've found out I am really no one.

One of the main things that I think makes his songs so real and allows him to express his ideas in a clear way is his use of imagery to really bring you into the story he is telling or the emotion he is trying to portray in each song. This is very creative and unique because most songwriters fail to write a song as if they were telling a story so their audience is not as engaged and isn't able to relate to the song on a deep and personal level.

This is an example of how Conner uses imagery to tell a story and set the scene for what he is trying to say.

Lyrics to Old Soul Song (For The New World Order) :
(feat. Emmylou Harris)

Gray light, new day leaks through the window
And an old song comes on the alarm clock radio
We walk the forty blocks to the middle
Of the place we heard that everything would be
And there were barricades to keep us off the street
But the crowd kept pushing forward
Until they swallowed the police
Ya they went wild

We left before the dust had time to settle
Now all the broken glass swept off the avenue
And on the way home held your camera like a bible
Just wishing so bad that it held some kind of truth
And I stood nervous next to you in the dark room
You dropped the paper in the water
And it all begins to bloom
Ya they go wild

And just when I get so lonesome I cant speak
I see some flowers on the hillside
Like the wars on TV
Ya they go wild