Bright Eyes

I generally dislike "sad bastard" music, but when my middle daughter was still living with me, she pulled my coat to this band and Elliott Smith and I got to where there were some bits that I actually liked. I was reminded of this recently, when two songs from I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning worked their way back into my consciousness.

First was "First Day of My Life," which I heard on the work muzak the other day and thought was M. Ward (whose Post-War sometimes also plays there) before I remembered, and just liked because it reminded me of her.



The other was "One Foot In Front of the Other" (aka "Land Locked Blues"), which I searched for on Youtube after Linc Campbell posted a bunch of Bright Eyes vids on Facebook and found this version, from a show I actually attended at Trees in Dallas. It was the night before we invaded Iraq, and I'd taken Aimee and a friend of hers. I saw more black X's that night than I'd ever seen at a show. It must have been the shittiest bar ever. The bartenders were pissed and charging kids $2 for water (which they let me drink all night for free). Then Conor sang this song and I thought it was the bravest thing I'd ever seen: a kid with a backwards haircut singing a song about walking away from a fight. Go fig.