Bright Eyes Down In The Weeds Where The World Once Was Vinyl LP Red & Orange Colour 2020

Bright Eyes' first album in eight years 'Down in the Weeds, Where The World Once Was', pressed on transparent red and orange vinyl. Includes a lyric sheet and digital download code.

Tracklist:

1. Pageturners Rag
2. Dance and Sing
3. Just once in the World
4. Mariana Trench

5. One and Done
6. Pan and Broom
7. Stairwell Song
8. Persona Non Grata
9. Tilt-A-Whirl
10. Hot Car in the Sun
11. Forced Convalescence
12. To Death’s Heart (In Three Parts)
13. Calais to Dover
14. Comet Song

A lone pair of footsteps meanders down a street in Omaha, into the neighborhood bar
and then into a near-imperceptible tangle of conversations – about wars, sleepless nights
– a surrealist din pushing against the sound of ragtime. Then, as the background quiets, a
line rings out clearly: “I think about how much people need – what they need right now is
to feel like there’s something to look forward to. We have to hold on. We have to hold on.”
Thus we enter the fitting, cacophonic introduction to Bright Eyes’ tenth studio
album and first release since 2011. Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was is
an enormous record caught in the profound in-between of grief and clarity – one arm
wrestling its demons, the other gripping the hand of love, in spite of it.

The end of Bright Eyes’ unofficial hiatus came naturally. Conor Oberst pitched the idea
of getting the band back together during a 2017 Christmas party at Bright Eyes bandmate
Nathaniel Walcott’s Los Angeles home. The two huddled in the bathroom and called Mike
Mogis, who was Christmas shopping at an Omaha mall. Mogis immediately said yes. There
was no specific catalyst for the trio, aside from finding comfort amidst a decade of brutal
change. Sure, Why now? is the question, but for a project whose friendship is at the core,
it was simply Why not?

The resulting Bright Eyes album came together unlike any other of its predecessors.
Down in the Weeds is Bright Eyes’ most collaborative, stemming from only one demo and
written in stints in Omaha and in bits and pieces in Walcott’s Los Angeles home. Radically
altering a writing process 25 years into a project seems daunting, but Oberst said there
was no trepidation: “Our history and our friendship, and my trust level with them, is
so complete and deep. And I wanted it to feel as much like a three-headed monster as
possible.”

As a title, as a thesis, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was functions
on a global, apocalyptic level of anxiety that looms throughout the record. But on a
personal level, it speaks to rooting around in the dirt of one’s memories, trying to find
the preciousness that’s overgrown and unrecognizable. For Oberst, coming back to Bright
Eyes was a bit of that. A symbol of simpler times, vaguely nostalgic. And even though it
wasn’t actually possible to go back to the way things were, even though there wasn’t an
easy happy ending, there was a new reality left to work with.

And here, there is a bleary-eyed hopefulness – earnest, emotive recommitments to
love appear on “Dance and Sing” and “Just Once in the World.” And throughout, Down in
the Weeds features snippets of Oberst’s loved ones speaking, in late-night conversations.
The fleeting loveliness of intimate moments punctuates the bleakness of the record’s
existential crisis, crackling like lightning bugs illuminating the long night.

Down in the Weeds is a distillation of a prolific, enduring canon. It’s immediate and urgent,
the product of its creators’ growth across a decade apart, as well as the need to make a
record together to find solace from loss. Through deliberate, fearless experimentation in
process, the trio made the truest Bright Eyes sound: the sound of a deep bond, of a band
coming home, but also a seamless continuation, like Bright Eyes never went away. It’s the
impossible, sprawling mess of human experience that Bright Eyes has always sought to put
to tape, since the beginning – the sound of holding on. Why now? Why not?