Did you expect it all to stop at the wave of your hand?
Like the sun's just going to drop if it's night you demand.
Well, in the dark we're just air, so the house might dissolve.
But once again we are gone. Who's going to care if we were ever here at all?
Well summer's going to come; it's gonna cloud our eyes again.
No need to focus when there's nothing that's worth seeing.
So we trade liquor for blood in an attempt to tip the scales.
I think you lost what you loved in that mess of details.
They seemed so important at the time,
but now you can't recall any of the names, faces, or lines;
it's more the feeling of it all.
Well, winter's going to end. I'm going to clean these veins again.
So close to dying that I finally can start living.

"Hi, we're back. This is radio KX and we're here with Conor Oberst of the band Bright Eyes. How are you doing Conor?"
"Fine, thanks. Just a little wet."
"Oh, it's still coming down out there?"
"Yeah, I sort of had to run from the car."
"Well we're glad you made it! Now, your album 'Fevers and Mirrors'... tell us about the title. I know there's a good deal of repeated imagery in the lyrics; fevers, mirrors, scales, clocks. Could you discuss some of this?"
"Sure, let's see... the fevers..."
"First, First let me say that, this is a brilliant record, man, we're all really into it here at the station and we get lots of calls, it's really good stuff."
"Thanks. Thanks a lot."
"So talk about some of the symbolisms."
"The fever?"
"Sure!"
"Well, the fever is basically, what ever ails you, or oppresses you... It could be anything. In my case it's my neurosis, my depression... but I don't want it to be limited to that... it's certainly different for different people. It's whatever keeps you up at night."
"I see."
"And the, and the mirror's like, as you might have guessed, self-examination, or reflection, or whatever form. This could be vanity, or self loathing. I, I know I'm, I'm guilty of both."
"That's interesting. How about the scale?"
"The scales are essentially our attempt to solve our problems quantitatively, through logic or rationalization. In my opinion it's often fruitless, but... always, no, not always... And the clocks and calendars it's uh... is just... time... our little measurements, it's like, it's always chasing after us."
"It is. It is. Uh, How about this Arienette, how does she fit into all this?"
"Um, I'd prefer not to talk about it, in case she's listening."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize she was a real person."
"She's not. I made her up."
"Oh, so she's not real?"
"Just as real as you or I."
"I don't think I understand."
"Neither do I, but after I grow up I will. I mean a lot... a lot of things are really unclear for me right now."
"That's interesting. Ah, now you mentioned your depression..."
"...No I didn't."
"You're from Nebraska, right?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Now, let me now if I'm getting too personal, but there seem to be a pretty dark past back there somewhere. What was it like for you growing up?"
"Dark? Not really... uh... actually I had a great childhood, my parents were wonderful. I went to a Catholic school. They have... they had money, so... it... It was all... easy. Basically I had everything I wanted handed to me."
"Really? So some of the references, like babies in bathtubs, are not biographical?"
"Well I do have a brother who died in a bathtub. Drowned. Actually, I had five brothers who died that way."
Chuckles
"No, I'm serious. My mother drowned one every year for five consecutive years. They were all named Padraic, so that's... they all got one song."
"Hmm."
"It's kinda like walking out the door to discover it's a window."
"But your music certainly is very personal."
"Of course. I put a lot of myself into what I do. But it's like, being an author you have to, free yourself to use symbolism and allegory to reach your goal and, and a part of that is, compassion, empathy for other people and their, and their situations. Some of what I sing comes from other people's experiences as well as my own. It... It shouldn't matter, the message is intended to be universal."
"I see what you mean."
"Can you make that sound stop, please?"
"Yes!

...and your goal?"
"I don't know. Uh, create feelings, I guess. A song? It never ends up the way you planned it, though."
"That's funny that you say that, do you think that..."
"Do you ever hear things that aren't really there?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Never mind. How long have you worked at this station?"
"Oh, just a few minutes. Uh, now you mentioned empathy for others. Would you say that that is what motivates you to make the music that you make?"
"No, not really. It's more a need for sympathy. I want people to feel sorry for me. I like the feel of the burn of the audience's eyes on me when I'm whispering all my darkest secrets into the microphone. When I was a kid, I used to carry this safety pin around with me, everywhere I went in my pocket. And when people weren't paying enough attention to me, I'd dig it into my arm until I started crying. Everyone would stop what they were doing and ask me what was the matter. I guess, I guess I kinda..."
"Really? You're telling me you're doing all this for attention?"
"No, I hate it when people look at me. I get nauseous. In fact, I could care less what people think, about me. Do you feel that? Wanna dance?"
"No, I'm feeling sick."
"I really just wanna be warm yellow light that pours all over everyone I love."
"So, uh, you're gonna play something for us now. Is this a new song?"
"Yeah, but I haven't written it yet. It's one I've been meaning to write, uh, called, "A Song To Pass The Time."
"Oh, that's a nice title."
"No it isn't. You should write your own scripts."
"Yeah, I know!"

Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly go the days.
Sunrise, sunset
You wake up then you undress.
It always is the same.
The sunrise and the sunsets
You are lying while you confess, keep trying to explain
the sunrise and the sunsets.
You realized then you forgot what you've been trying to retain.
But everybody knows that it is all about the things
that get stuck inside of your head,
like the song your roommate sings
or a vision of her body as she stretches out on your bed.
She raises her hands in the air, asked you,
when was the last time you looked in the mirror?
'Cause you've changed.
Yeah, you've changed.
Sunrises, sunsets
You're hopeful then you regret.
The circle never breaks.
With a sunrise or a sunset there's a change of heart or address.
Is there nothing that remains
for a sunrise or a sunset?
You're manic and depressed.
Will you ever feel okay?
For a sunrise or a sunset your lover is an actress.
Did you really think she'd stay
for a sunrise or a sunset?
You're either coming or you just left, but you're always on the way
towards a sunrise or a sunset, a scribble or a sonnet.
They are really just the same.
To the sunrise and the sunset,
the master and the servant have exactly the same fate.
It's a sunrise and a sunset
from a cradle to a casket
there is no way to escape
the sunrise and the sunset.
Hold your sadness like a puppet, keep putting on the play.
But everything you do is leading to the point
where you just won't know what to do.
And at that moment you may laugh,
but there is someone there who will be laughing louder than you.
So it's true; the trick is complete.
Become everything you said you never would be.
You're a fool! You're a fool!
Sunrise, sunset, sunrises, sunsets
Sunrise and the sunsets.
Sunrise, sunset
Where are you Arienette?
Where are you Arienette?

At the center of the world
there's a statue of a girl.
She is standing near a well
with a bucket, bare and dry.

I went and looked her in the eyes
and she turned me into sand.
This clumsy form that I despise;
it scattered easy in her hand

and came to rest upon a beach
with a million others there.
We sat and waited for the sea
to stretch out so that we could disappear

into the endlessness of blue;
into the horror of the truth.
You see, we are far less than we know.
Yeah, we are far less than we knew.

But we know what we could taste
Girls found honey to drench our hands.
Men cut marble to mark our graves.
Said we'll need something to remind us of
all the sweetness that has passed through us;
fresh sangria and lemon tea.
The priests dressed children for a choir.
white robed small voices praise Him
but found no joy in what was sung.
The funeral had begun.

In the middle of the day
when you drive home to your place
from that job that makes you sleep,
back to the thoughts that keep you awake,

long after night has come to claim
any light that still remains
in the corner of the frame
that you put around her face.

Two pills just weren't enough.
The alarm clock's going off
but you're not waking up.
This isn't happening happening happening
happening happening. It is.

Tomorrow when I wake up I'm finding my brother
and making him take me back down to the water.
That lake where we sailed and laughed with our father.
I will not desert him. I will not desert him.
No matter how I may wish for a coffin so clean,
or these trees to undress all their leaves onto me.
I put my face in the dirt and then finally I see
the sky that has been avoiding me.
I started this letter; I'm going to send it to Ruba;
It will be blessed by her eyes on the gulf coast of Florida.
With her feet in the sand and one hand on her swimsuit,
she will recite the prayer of my pen.
Saying, "Time take us forward, relief from this longing.
They can land that plane on my heart, I don't care.
Just give me November; the warmth of a whisper
in the freezing darkness of my room."
But no matter what I would do in attempt to replace
all these pills that I take trying to balance my brain;
I've seen the curious girl with that look on her face,
so surprised she stares out from her display case.

The fragile keep secrets gathered in pockets
and they'll sell them for nothing; a cheap watch or locket
That kind of gold washes off.
And the sad act like lepers; they stick to the shadows
and long to ring bells of warning to tell of their coming
so that the pure can shut their doors.
And the angry are animals, senseless and savage.
They act without order in logical lapses.
They stain their mouths with blood.
So take my hand; this barren land is alive tonight.
The corn has grown stalks that form a wall too high,
but the wind carries sounds that I can't hear from beyond that line.
Then the stalks begin to sway.
Oh stay with me Arienette, until the wolves are away.

Well the wicked are vultures and they bake in the canyons.
They circle in sunlight and wait for their victims
to collapse and call to them.
And the desperate are water; they will run down forever
as they soak into silence, mend up together
in a dark and distant, dark and distant place,
So don't leave me here with only mirrors watching me.
This house it holds nothing but the memories.
And the moon, it leaves silver but never sleep
and then the silver turns to gray.
Oh stay with me Arienette until the wolves are away.

You follow a footstep's echoes leading down a hall to a room.
There is music playing tiny bells with moving parts.
Here the shadows make things ugly; an effect quite undesirable.
The bold and yellow daylight grows like ivy across the wall
and it bounces off the painted porcelein, tiny dancing doll.
Her body spins. As she pirouettes again the world suddenly seems small.
On an off-white, subtle morning, you stretch your legs in the front seat;
and the road has made a vacuum where our voices used to be.
And you lay your head onto my shoulder; pour like water over me.
So if I just exist for the next ten minutes of this drive that would be fine,
and all of the trees that line this curb would be rejoicing and alive.
Soon all the joy that pours from everything makes fountains of your eyes
because you finally understand the movement of a hand waving goodbye.