Tracks
Bright Eyes: "Soul Singer In A Session Band"
(2007)
By Joel Elliott | 31 January 2008
On paper "Soul Singer in a Session Band" is almost hopelessly narcissistic; on the album that will almost certainly establish an even greater mainstream success for Bright Eyes, our protagonist compares himself (at least implicitly) with a struggling artist-for-hire, forced to compromise his creative integrity.
Is this Oberst's situation? The fact that the song even exists seems to suggest this can't be the case. Luckily, despite his obviously narrowed vision here, he attempts to open the song up beyond his personal experience. The way Bright Eyes' songs shift between first and third person is often the key to where he transfers back and forth between the personal and political, and here Oberst uses the plight of the session musician to examine his own ennui from endless touring and recording, and the crumbling of personal expression in the face of corporate and public interests. It's probably grossly mistaken to assume that Bright Eyes are subject to any kind of external censorship, no matter how broadly one defines the term. Despite the expensive-sounding production on Cassadaga, it's still being released by the same tiny Nebraska label the band has been with since the outset, whose next-greatest success stories have probably been the Faint and Cursive. Rather, "Soul Singer" makes for a convincing portrait of internal conflict which nevertheless arises from Oberst's external situation. His inability to look beyond the immediate strain of his profession is self-absorbed, granted, but tragically so, swallowing up the possibility of music as an end-in-itself within an existential hole.
Anyway, one can debate Bright Eyes' relevance, but how many artists are charismatic enough to even warrant such exhaustive attempts to encapsulate their ideological baggage, enlightening or detrimental as it may be? Besides, the appeal of this song is all in Oberst's delivery, which finds him reaching new heights of catharsis in the shout-along chorus, and thankfully tempering it all with a strong sense of humour (the line about the soul singer "Wail[ing] like an infant / Atop a white baby grand" makes me laugh out loud). You can hear him spitting every syllable in the title, and when he watches the subject of the song, the "quickness of pity like a flash in the pan" is not so much an instant of sympathy as it is one of self-doubt. Despite the bleakness of the subject matter, even when the soul singer is "Shredded to ribbons / Before the microphone stand" you get the sense he's actually finding his moment of release; or at the very least, Oberst is. It might just be those aggressive accents on the chord changes, or an equally simple tactic from a musical point of view, but "Soul Singer" might accomplish what "The Saints are Coming" could never do: to entertain an escapist fantasy while contrasting it with the harsh reality.
Is this Oberst's situation? The fact that the song even exists seems to suggest this can't be the case. Luckily, despite his obviously narrowed vision here, he attempts to open the song up beyond his personal experience. The way Bright Eyes' songs shift between first and third person is often the key to where he transfers back and forth between the personal and political, and here Oberst uses the plight of the session musician to examine his own ennui from endless touring and recording, and the crumbling of personal expression in the face of corporate and public interests. It's probably grossly mistaken to assume that Bright Eyes are subject to any kind of external censorship, no matter how broadly one defines the term. Despite the expensive-sounding production on Cassadaga, it's still being released by the same tiny Nebraska label the band has been with since the outset, whose next-greatest success stories have probably been the Faint and Cursive. Rather, "Soul Singer" makes for a convincing portrait of internal conflict which nevertheless arises from Oberst's external situation. His inability to look beyond the immediate strain of his profession is self-absorbed, granted, but tragically so, swallowing up the possibility of music as an end-in-itself within an existential hole.
Anyway, one can debate Bright Eyes' relevance, but how many artists are charismatic enough to even warrant such exhaustive attempts to encapsulate their ideological baggage, enlightening or detrimental as it may be? Besides, the appeal of this song is all in Oberst's delivery, which finds him reaching new heights of catharsis in the shout-along chorus, and thankfully tempering it all with a strong sense of humour (the line about the soul singer "Wail[ing] like an infant / Atop a white baby grand" makes me laugh out loud). You can hear him spitting every syllable in the title, and when he watches the subject of the song, the "quickness of pity like a flash in the pan" is not so much an instant of sympathy as it is one of self-doubt. Despite the bleakness of the subject matter, even when the soul singer is "Shredded to ribbons / Before the microphone stand" you get the sense he's actually finding his moment of release; or at the very least, Oberst is. It might just be those aggressive accents on the chord changes, or an equally simple tactic from a musical point of view, but "Soul Singer" might accomplish what "The Saints are Coming" could never do: to entertain an escapist fantasy while contrasting it with the harsh reality.