BEST SONGWRITER

Conor Oberst

Finishing a song is still my singular favorite feeling in the world," Conor Oberst says, "more than records or shows. The creation of a song is what drives me."
Such passion shows throughout Oberst's songbook, which he began creating as a frail, spectral thirteen-year-old in Omaha, Nebraska. Visceral documents of self-unraveling like "Padraic My Prince," "We Are Nowhere and It's Now" and "Lover I Don't Have to Love" — the last featuring lyrics like "Love's an excuse to get hurt/And to hurt" — deliver an emotional wallop in part because they seem at once offhand and unbearably intense. In Oberst's vision, death, loneliness and social decay are themes at the heart of every day; he doesn't need to look far to find them — or to channel them. "Everything has been done by intuition and happenstance," he explains. "I still have no idea what I'm doing, or why I'm doing it. It just kind of keeps happening. For me, at this point, it's about accepting it all, letting it all go and moving forward." Read More...

OBERST ESSENTIALS

"Padriatic My Prince" from Letting Off the Happiness LISTEN
"The Calendar Hung Itself" from Fevers and Mirrors LISTEN
"Nothing Gets Crossed Out" from Lifted LISTEN
"Lover I Don't Have to Love" from Lifted LISTEN
"Bowl of Oranges" from Lifted LISTEN
"Lua" from I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning LISTEN
"First Day of My Life" from I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning LISTEN
"Take It Easy (Love Nothing)" from Digital Ash in a Digital Urn LISTEN
"We Are Nowhere and It's Now" from I'm Wide Awake It's Morning LISTEN
"When the President Talks to God" (2005 Single) LISTEN
"Four Winds" from Cassadega LISTEN
"Soul Singer in a Session Band" from Cassadega LISTEN

King of Indie Rock Rock's Boy Genius Recapping Conor Oberst's Wild Seven Nights At New York's Town Hall Click here to listen to Cassadaga

Photo: Bill Sitzmann

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