I'm very interested in writing - it just takes so much discipline, whether it's short stories or novels.
— Conor Oberst
So much of listening to lyrically driven music is projecting your own feelings and experiences into the music.
The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you're going to find out you're wrong - that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out, those are the exceptions.
There's a lot of optimism in changing scenery, in seeing what's down the road.
The idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because it's kind of a nice thing to say, you know. I think it softens the blow of mortality and having to say goodbye to everything you know and everyone you love and all that kind of thing.
I think that, with anything creative, you should have the freedom to experiment, and that experimentation means not feeling totally responsible for how other people perceive it.
I try to make all my songs good. I don't ever write one to finish one. A lot of protest songs end up that way, driven by some kind of emotional response.
I keep my eyes closed a lot when I'm singing because sometimes it's distracting to see people.
I used to work at a school as a teacher's assistant, and my mom is a principal at an elementary school. I don't know, I think that's a pretty good life, teaching kids.
I try to keep the idea that there's an audience in as little space in my mind as possible, but you can't erase it entirely, the idea that when you're sitting down to write a song, people are going to hear it.
I've given up trying to understand what people think about me. It seems like a lot of people don't like the music we make and don't know me, or something.
The worst thing you can do as an artist is to repeat yourself.
I like ideas, but I don't like being preached to.
It's dangerous to buy into praise and criticism for what you do when you're trying to present your music to people. I don't ignore it completely, but I don't dwell on it too much.
There's a very fine line between one person's reality and another person's fantasy.
The only thing major labels can really offer is money.
If there's a song that stops meaning anything to me, then I'll quit playing it.
I didn't used to think about politics much, or social issues. I was a teenager, writing about girls.
I'm proud that with 'Bright Eyes' we've always experimented and tried to make a different record every time out.
If there's a criticism of 'Cassadaga' that I agreed with, it's that we left things in the oven too long, that songs were overstuffed, with too many ideas competing for space.
I don't really premeditate what I write my songs about; you know, they just kind of happen, and I can't start writing songs to please a certain group of people or propagate a certain message all the time. That's just not how my songwriting works - it just sort of comes out, and the songs are what they are.
My family is Catholic. I went to a Catholic school, that kind of thing, so that was my childhood for sure.
My main thing is just to keep writing. I've been doing some songwriting that's for my own record, I suppose.
I read the newspaper online. Mostly 'The New York Times.' I'll still buy papers if I'm getting on an airplane or the tour bus, though. I like physical things.
I would prefer to be a little nervous, because when you stop being nervous is kind of when you stop caring.
I remember having to quit school and quit my job. I just sort of moved all my stuff into other people's places. Within, like, six months, I was able to earn enough money from touring to rent a place again.
I enjoy recording and performing, but it's the songwriting that I love most.
I've been part of running a label since I was a kid, so I understand how it works. But the more and more I learn about it, the less and less interested I am in it.
I don't feel real confident expressing myself except when I'm writing. I feel kind of scatterbrained. I can see everything from both sides and that makes it hard to reach conclusions. Writing enables me to clarify things.
I like the Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park. I love how it's been rained on forever and looks worn down by time.
Music is unique because you can get behind enemy lines a little bit, get into people's houses and into their heads, on their stereos, and win hearts and minds.
To finish a song is the best feeling in the world.
On good days, I can see the inherent goodness in people, and that human beings have a high capacity to learn and adapt. But things like the environment, nuclear weapons and ideas like peak oil - if you think about them too much, they can really freak you out.
I always embrace the worst-case scenario.
Movement has been one of the few constants in my life, and I always feel a great sense of optimism when I set off to a new place.
I never camped as a kid, but I really got into camping and sleeping outdoors. I've also done some amazing river floats in New Mexico and Idaho. It's peaceful and awesome.
I think there are some songs that stand the test of time better than others for sure. I think some songs go out of favour; I'll get sick of a song for a while, and I won't play it; then it'll make a comeback.
I have a lot of friends that take that position of extreme cynicism, and I just can't let myself go to that place. It's just too easy, and it's just too defeatist.
Art is basically communication, and I think everyone who's a music lover has had that experience where a record or a recording has kept you company when no one else is around. And I think that is what I'm hoping that people get out of my music.
When I started writing songs, I was doing it for myself and a small circle of friends. And gradually, over the years, an audience became involved.
One of my best friends, Mike, had a kid. Just seeing him go through it all was inspiring. It would be so nice to care about someone more than yourself. And Mike is a total delinquent, so if he can do it, I figure I can, too.
I think in a lot of ways unconditional love is a myth. My mom's the only reason I know it's a real thing.
I'll write about myself, or people I know, or archetypal characters, but the goal is to get at some truth, not to necessarily convey my own experience as an individual to the world.
I think we should be pushing for amnesty and a path to citizenship for every undocumented person residing in the United States who has not committed a violent crime, with a special emphasis on keeping families together.
The best feeling I ever get is when I finish a song, and it exists, and it didn't exist before, and now it's there, and it makes me feel a certain way.
My favorite rhymes are sort of half-rhymes where you might just get the vowel sound the same, but it's not really a true rhyme. That gives you far more flexibility to capture the feeling you're trying to express. But sometimes it's best not to have any rhyme.
I've thought about the idea of, 'Can happiness and creativity co-exist?' So much of what I've done, I think, has been based on being dissatisfied or incomplete or lonely. The answer is, 'There isn't an answer, necessarily.'
With science and reason throughout history, what people believed turned out to be false. So I like to keep an open mind to all perspectives and learn and become more fully realised as a person. I just feel we're never going to know what the full picture is.
When I would first come to New York on tour, I hated the place.
It's glorious to be able to go onto the Internet and hear any kind of music anywhere, from anywhere, and get it instantly. But there's also something glorious about having a record with a sleeve and looking at the artwork, putting it on the turntable and playing it, there's still something romantic to me about that.
