Editor’s Note: This is the second installment of Mood Music — a feature in which I will deconstruct an album each month, analyzing it as it relates to the bipolar experience.
For a sunrise or a sunset
You’re manic or your depressed
Will you ever feel OK?
…
It’s a sunrise and a sunset
From the cradle to the casket
There is no way to escape
— Bright Eyes – “Sunrise, Sunset”
I’ve always been of the opinion that depressing art — no matter how dark — isn’t depressing at all as long as it is truly great. Requiem for a Dream isn’t depressing because it’s a masterpiece of filmmaking. So is the case with Fevers and Mirrors, the 2000 album from Bright Eyes that overflows with dreadfully sad lyrics.
Conor Oberst, a.k.a. Bright Eyes, is perhaps the greatest songwriter of my generation. I’m being hyperbolic here, but I actually think it’s true. He’s been called the “new Bob Dylan” and for good reason: His vivid storytelling captures the zeitgeist of these intense times. Oberst was only 19 when he wrote these songs. This is heavy stuff, and he was definitely emotionally mature for his age.
It’s what my ex-boyfriend used to call “slit your wrists music.” There is talk of suicide: “I was determined in Chicago, but I dug my teeth into my knees” (“The Calendar Hung Itself”). Cutting: “We trade liquor for blood in an attempt to tip the scales” (“An Attempt to Tip the Scales”). And of course, depression:
Now and again
It seems worse than it is
But mostly the view is accurate
You see your breath in the air
As you climb up the stairs
To that coffin you call your apartment
And you slink in the chair
Brush the snow from your hair
And dream the cold away
— “Something Vague”
With dreary minor chords aplenty, Conor’s trusty acoustic guitar emanates gloom. And his quivering voice on the quiet songs bleeds despair.
And I sing and sing of awful things
The pleasure that my sadness brings
As my fingers press onto the strings
In yet another clumsy chord
— “Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh”
This collection of funereal dirges is emotionally masochistic and aesthetically sublime, endlessly alluring for anyone who has dived down the depths of depression. To feel good about feeling sad. To feel in general. That is the experience of listening to Fevers and Mirrors. Like a bipolar mixed state, it is mania and depression at the same time. Twisted but true, it is simultaneous joy and 100-percent-pure melancholy.
For more on Bright Eyes, check out this video piece I cut for MTV News…
Listen to the Fevers and Mirrors on Spotify below. Or if you’re more YouTube inclined, here’s a clip of Something Vague.
