the start of a review of 'motion sickness'
Let's start at the start.
There is music that you can barely make out that fades out as the cd fades in,followed by a cheer, 'conor I love you' exclaims one girl then, a train speeds through the whole scene, smashing it all to pieces and trailing a new landscape behind it, this is the world acording to Coner Oberst, and here are his commandments.
'We must talk in every telephone, get eaten off the web...'
The first verse, shows us the importance of empathy, could anyone switch the switch after looking in to the condemned man's eyes for so long? Coner's voice is crystal clear, almost too good, lacking emotion somewhat. The jangling of the lead guitar, while pleasent to hear, adds to this void of emotion. He is merely signing the song.
The next verse follows this pattern unttil the pernutimate line,
'Into ear of every anarchist that sleeps but doesn't dream'
It is hardly noticable, but on the world 'anarchist' the music, every instrument, becomes urgent, it's as if the music is clinging on for dear life but, in an instant it's back to that trundle of the first verse.
And then it all explodes, or at least threatens to. The lyrics certainly do however.
'While my mother waters plants my father loads his gun he says "death will bring us back to god, just like the setting sun is returned to the lonesome ocean"'
There is the obvious (yet effective) juxtapostion between life and death, and the shocking nature of the father's possible motives, but on so many different levels do these lines provoke thoughts. Life or heaven? Heaven at all? The father himself is unsure, 'the lonesome ocean'; death could be the most lonesome of them all.
At this point conner's commandments are stolen from him by the society he lives in, of America under bush (sorry for this) about how we must 'blend into the choir' and enjoy it, we must 'deny we have a soul' in order to win in this race of rats with such unimportant and uninteresting things, of course to anyone who embraces the soul, on offer to the winners.
Conner tries to steal his song back, but still in the back of his mind is the futility of modern life, he tries to float in the rafters of a church where bats and moonlight share jokes but he decides to come back down to tell us something profound. All we need to know is that we do not know what will happen in the future, if we know this all we need are flashlights and love to get down to 'the bottom of everything'
And when we're there we'll see it. Whatever we were looking for at the start, heaven, life or a lonesome ocean, but whatever it is from Coner's voice it sounds like a marvolous thing, he sounds like the girl at the start of the concert, so excited about finally meeting his idol, his idyl? We'll never know.
And everybody comes back to life, the robots of the choir are saved, the numbers are forgottn, the souls are called back and apologised to, busses float and Coner is happy just because, for a moment our hearts are warmed then the next line almost trying to make itself inconspicious crashes down.
'I found out, I am really no one'
All of the togetherness of the last verse is cursed, it makes it so everyone is anonymous, this feeling that makes busses float and reaffirms the soul also causes such feelings to disapear and dissolve away just like the music, it tries in vain to carry on but it succums in the end to a clichéd finish.
finsih this adam :P
There is music that you can barely make out that fades out as the cd fades in,followed by a cheer, 'conor I love you' exclaims one girl then, a train speeds through the whole scene, smashing it all to pieces and trailing a new landscape behind it, this is the world acording to Coner Oberst, and here are his commandments.
'We must talk in every telephone, get eaten off the web...'
The first verse, shows us the importance of empathy, could anyone switch the switch after looking in to the condemned man's eyes for so long? Coner's voice is crystal clear, almost too good, lacking emotion somewhat. The jangling of the lead guitar, while pleasent to hear, adds to this void of emotion. He is merely signing the song.
The next verse follows this pattern unttil the pernutimate line,
'Into ear of every anarchist that sleeps but doesn't dream'
It is hardly noticable, but on the world 'anarchist' the music, every instrument, becomes urgent, it's as if the music is clinging on for dear life but, in an instant it's back to that trundle of the first verse.
And then it all explodes, or at least threatens to. The lyrics certainly do however.
'While my mother waters plants my father loads his gun he says "death will bring us back to god, just like the setting sun is returned to the lonesome ocean"'
There is the obvious (yet effective) juxtapostion between life and death, and the shocking nature of the father's possible motives, but on so many different levels do these lines provoke thoughts. Life or heaven? Heaven at all? The father himself is unsure, 'the lonesome ocean'; death could be the most lonesome of them all.
At this point conner's commandments are stolen from him by the society he lives in, of America under bush (sorry for this) about how we must 'blend into the choir' and enjoy it, we must 'deny we have a soul' in order to win in this race of rats with such unimportant and uninteresting things, of course to anyone who embraces the soul, on offer to the winners.
Conner tries to steal his song back, but still in the back of his mind is the futility of modern life, he tries to float in the rafters of a church where bats and moonlight share jokes but he decides to come back down to tell us something profound. All we need to know is that we do not know what will happen in the future, if we know this all we need are flashlights and love to get down to 'the bottom of everything'
And when we're there we'll see it. Whatever we were looking for at the start, heaven, life or a lonesome ocean, but whatever it is from Coner's voice it sounds like a marvolous thing, he sounds like the girl at the start of the concert, so excited about finally meeting his idol, his idyl? We'll never know.
And everybody comes back to life, the robots of the choir are saved, the numbers are forgottn, the souls are called back and apologised to, busses float and Coner is happy just because, for a moment our hearts are warmed then the next line almost trying to make itself inconspicious crashes down.
'I found out, I am really no one'
All of the togetherness of the last verse is cursed, it makes it so everyone is anonymous, this feeling that makes busses float and reaffirms the soul also causes such feelings to disapear and dissolve away just like the music, it tries in vain to carry on but it succums in the end to a clichéd finish.
finsih this adam :P