I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=essMPo4E3rc

I wondered for a while what to pick for this post, because there's a whole lot of art that I love. Then I thought about what art has had the most impact on me as a person, cognitively and emotionally. And there are few pieces of art that have affected me as deeply as the album I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning by Bright Eyes. It's powerful, soft, angry, sad, meaningful, and beautiful in very many ways, and I think that that makes it an ideal piece of art.

The album starts with a story leading into the first track, "At the Bottom of Everything," where a woman is told how she should live her life while the airplane she is on crashes in the Pacific Ocean. Other songs include "Lua," a mournful confession of why the singer is a failure; "Land Locked Blues," which mourns a breakup and goes into a criticism of violence and endless war; and "Road to Joy," which holds musical themes of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and is a satirically joyful song about society and, again, war. Each song is has unique sounds and poignant musical and lyrical references to American society, but each song also has Bright Eyes' distinctively desolate tone, striking social commentary, and an understanding of cultural and personal depression.

What makes the album a perfect work of art for me are the lyrics. The songs themselves are masterpieces of story and emotion, but there are always perfect lines that hit you with feeling, especially when combined with Conor Oberst's raw voice. "I'm keeping up with the moon on an all-night avenue," "Death will give us back to God, just like the setting sun is returned to the lonesome ocean," and "No one ever plans to sleep out in the gutter; sometimes that's just the most comfortable place." The combination of poetic lyrics and equally harsh and gentle music makes the album a uniquely emotional experience, where you know that the music and lyrics are objectively good and this only adds to the sensory and intuitive reaction that the music provides. Objectively and subjectively, I feel that this album is incredible and so meaningful, and it has influenced me to become the person and artist that I am.