#117, "The Calendar Hung Itself," Bright Eyes (2000)

150 Favorite Songs: #117, "The Calendar Hung Itself," Bright Eyes (2000)

The first time I heard about Bright Eyes, it was on a first date with a girl in San Antonio, probably at an IHOP (I was super classy when I was twenty). It wasn't a very good date. I don't remember much about the girl, except that she kept gushing about this dude Conor Oberst (and she had "Starry Night" tattooed across her back, which was admittedly a neat thing to see at an IHOP) and how he was the best songwriter ever. We didn’t see each other again.

Over the next year or so, I heard a lot of people, mostly girls who I may have been interested in dating, go on about Conor Oberst. This dude, my age, recovering Catholic, from suburban Omaha, Nebraska, and who spoke to their souls. And I realized: Waitasecond, I went to middle school with that dude. At least, I think I did. I don't have a yearbook or anything, but I distinctly remember a Conor who I retroactively remember hating during the year I went to middle school in suburban Omaha. So, yeah—I was a boy who hated Bright Eyes, and Conor Oberst, when I first heard about him. He was the subject of my cranky rants. I made fun of his voice, talked about how the only way I could get through them was to imagine that they were being sung by Bill Murray. Jealousy inspires that sort of pettiness, at least in me.

But I had a bunch of Bright Eyes songs that I had downloaded when I first heard about him, and I bought an old, clunky mp3 player and threw all of the songs I had on it, including those Bright Eyes songs. And I would occasionally listen to it on shuffle.

Here is one of the most distinct memories of my life, from when I was twenty-two: I am riding my bike up the monster hill on S. 1st St. in Austin, heading north to my old apartment at S. 1st and Barton Springs, on my way home from the bookstore I was working at. I have headphones on because, I dunno, I'm stupid and living dangerously. I am pushing up the hill, and there's a girl on my mind. We've been spending a lot of time together, and I have been falling hard for her, and I just had a weird realization—I somehow know that she has a boyfriend, but she never told me because her situation is complicated, and I don't know how I know, but I'm trying to get up this hill when it hits me, and then the Creative Nomad Jukebox 2 mp3 player shuffles over to "The Calendar Hung Itself," and—well, just listen to it.

does he kiss your eyelids in the morning when you start to raise your head?

and does he sing to you incessantly from the space between your bed and wall?

does he walk around all day at school, his feet inside your shoes, looking down every few steps to pretend he walks with you?

I don't think I ever felt as totally exposed by a song as I did in that moment. I may even have the timeline backwards—I may have heard the song and then realized exactly what the real situation was, like Conor fucking Oberst had it figured out before I did. I remember this massive rush of adrenaline flooding through me, and pounding up that hill on my bike in seconds. It was a strange, devastating moment and I remember getting home and feeling like a crazy person, because I didn't have any proof of anything, but I just knew. I convinced myself that I was being ridiculous, told a few friends who assured me that was the case, and then eventually calmed down and went to sleep.

(I found out a few days later that I was right, as it happened. Don't worry, it all worked out for the best in the end.)

But after that, I really understood what all of those people who told me about Conor Oberst were talking about. The song is juvenile, obviously. He talks about being at school, even! But I was twenty-two, so it's not like any of those situations had been a lifetime ago, and as much as I tried to pretend that I was Very Mature, I related to that bleeding outpouring of emotion way more than I'd have admitted. From the time I heard about Bright Eyes to the time I was pedaling up that hill, most of my heartsickness had been dull, memories of a long-gone break-up and the occasional crush that didn't work out, bad first dates, stuff like that. Nothing that required a rhythm track as frantic as "The Calendar Hung Itself." It wasn't that Bright Eyes sucked, it's that I wasn't feeling things that way. When I did, I needed that song, desperately. To the point that it had to find me on shuffle.

I never really committed to Oberst's music, even after that night riding up the hill. I stopped hating on the guy, because that would have been hypocritical, but I still don’t fully connect with his music. I liked Lifted a little bit, but I felt like all the criticisms people had of him were still valid, and then he started making NPR music and I stopped paying attention. I don't expect that it would ever give anyone the soundtrack to an intensely crappy night of realization, but if we really did go to school together when we were twelve, then that'd make sense, too—the sort of bleeding, strained emotion that boys like us lived for sounds silly at this point. There are new kids making that music today, I'm sure.